Simulation design and performance evaluation of a thermoelectric refrigerator with inhomogeneously-doped nanomaterials

Junyi Wang, Yuan Wang, Shanhe Su and Jincan Chen

Energy, 2017, vol. 121, issue C, 427-432

Abstract: Inhomogeneously-doped nanostructure materials are used to construct a conceptual model of the thermoelectric refrigerator. The energy balance equation and Domenicali's equation are combined to compute the heat flow and temperature distributions along the device legs. Effects of the current density, lattice thermal conductivity, and width of the energy selective electron channel on the coefficient of performance are discussed. By comparing with the thermoelectric refrigerator with bulk semiconductors, it is expounded that quantum effects such as confinement and tunneling are capable of significantly reducing the irreversible energy losses due to the electron transport, which has a great potential to improve the cooling efficiency. The results obtained can provide some theoretical guidance for the optimal design of practical thermoelectric refrigerators.

Keywords: Thermoelectric refrigerator; Inhomogeneously-doped nanomaterial; Energy selective electron channel; Coefficient of performance; Optimal design (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544217300361
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:121:y:2017:i:c:p:427-432

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2017.01.036

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().