The Thermoelectric Analysis of Different Heat Flux Conduction Materials for Power Generation Board

Siyang Li, Kwok Ho Lam and Ka Wai Eric Cheng
Additional contact information
Siyang Li: Power Electronics Research Center, Department of Electrical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 11, Hong Chong Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Kwok Ho Lam: Power Electronics Research Center, Department of Electrical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 11, Hong Chong Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Ka Wai Eric Cheng: Power Electronics Research Center, Department of Electrical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 11, Hong Chong Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 11, 1-14

Abstract: The development of the thermoelectric (TE) power generation is rapid, and the applications have extensively been studied. The principle is based on the Seebeck effect, in which the temperature difference between hot and cold sides of the TE material converts to electrical energy. In this paper, a design is proposed to convert the thermal energy between indoor and outdoor of a board to electrical energy by the thermoelectric generator (TEG). Furthermore, the electrical energy generated is charged to supercapacitors as a battery or a power supply to the loads (e.g., lights) of the house. Besides the experimental work, a thermal model and an electrical model of the TEG have been proposed. To study the power generation performance in terms of materials, the simulation of the conversion efficiency of the TE board using materials with different thermal conductance have also been conducted. It was found that, using graphene as the thermally conductive material, the conversion efficiency was enhanced by 1.6% and 1.7%, when the temperature difference was 15 °C and 40 °C, respectively.

Keywords: thermoelectric generator; TEG; thermal energy; energy conversion; board; energy storage (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/11/1781/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/10/11/1781/ (text/html)

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:gam:jeners:v:10:y:2017:i:11:p:1781-:d:117698

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().