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Experiments on Waste Heat Thermoelectric Generation for Passenger Vehicles

In order to utilize waste heat from passenger vehicles by a thermoelectric generator (TEG), a lab-scale TEG with a sufficient low-pressure drop was designed and tested. The waste heat from a 2.0 L petrol engine was simulated by using an air-circulation channel with an adjustable electric heater and...

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Autores principales: Chen, Jianfei, Xie, Wei, Dai, Min, Shen, Guorong, Li, Guoneng, Tang, Yuanjun
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8779123/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35056272
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi13010107
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author Chen, Jianfei
Xie, Wei
Dai, Min
Shen, Guorong
Li, Guoneng
Tang, Yuanjun
author_facet Chen, Jianfei
Xie, Wei
Dai, Min
Shen, Guorong
Li, Guoneng
Tang, Yuanjun
author_sort Chen, Jianfei
collection PubMed
description In order to utilize waste heat from passenger vehicles by a thermoelectric generator (TEG), a lab-scale TEG with a sufficient low-pressure drop was designed and tested. The waste heat from a 2.0 L petrol engine was simulated by using an air-circulation channel with an adjustable electric heater and a speed control motor. The TEG consisted of an integrated molding designed aluminum-finned heat collector, twenty thermoelectric modules, and a set of water-cooled heat sinks. Experiments were conducted in terms of power load feature, pressure drop, heat collection efficiency, thermoelectric efficiency and overall efficiency. It was found that the hot-end temperature was much lower (46.9%) than the flue gas temperature because the trade-off between fin area and pressure drop had to be considered. The obtained maximum electric power was 36.4 W, and the corresponding pressure drop was 36 Pa. The corresponding heat collection efficiency was 46.5%, and the thermoelectric efficiency was 2.88%, which agreed well with the theoretical prediction of 3.38%. As a result, an overall efficiency of 1.21% was reached. The present work firstly demonstrated a waste-heat-recovering TEG prototype with a balanced overall efficiency of over 1%, and a pressure drop of less than 50 Pa. On the other hand, the maximum electric power was difficult to fully extract. The charging power to a battery with a maximum power point tracking direct current–direct current converter was experimentally verified to work at a much higher conversion efficiency (15.3% higher) than regular converters.
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spelling pubmed-87791232022-01-22 Experiments on Waste Heat Thermoelectric Generation for Passenger Vehicles Chen, Jianfei Xie, Wei Dai, Min Shen, Guorong Li, Guoneng Tang, Yuanjun Micromachines (Basel) Article In order to utilize waste heat from passenger vehicles by a thermoelectric generator (TEG), a lab-scale TEG with a sufficient low-pressure drop was designed and tested. The waste heat from a 2.0 L petrol engine was simulated by using an air-circulation channel with an adjustable electric heater and a speed control motor. The TEG consisted of an integrated molding designed aluminum-finned heat collector, twenty thermoelectric modules, and a set of water-cooled heat sinks. Experiments were conducted in terms of power load feature, pressure drop, heat collection efficiency, thermoelectric efficiency and overall efficiency. It was found that the hot-end temperature was much lower (46.9%) than the flue gas temperature because the trade-off between fin area and pressure drop had to be considered. The obtained maximum electric power was 36.4 W, and the corresponding pressure drop was 36 Pa. The corresponding heat collection efficiency was 46.5%, and the thermoelectric efficiency was 2.88%, which agreed well with the theoretical prediction of 3.38%. As a result, an overall efficiency of 1.21% was reached. The present work firstly demonstrated a waste-heat-recovering TEG prototype with a balanced overall efficiency of over 1%, and a pressure drop of less than 50 Pa. On the other hand, the maximum electric power was difficult to fully extract. The charging power to a battery with a maximum power point tracking direct current–direct current converter was experimentally verified to work at a much higher conversion efficiency (15.3% higher) than regular converters. MDPI 2022-01-10 /pmc/articles/PMC8779123/ /pubmed/35056272 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi13010107 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Chen, Jianfei
Xie, Wei
Dai, Min
Shen, Guorong
Li, Guoneng
Tang, Yuanjun
Experiments on Waste Heat Thermoelectric Generation for Passenger Vehicles
title Experiments on Waste Heat Thermoelectric Generation for Passenger Vehicles
title_full Experiments on Waste Heat Thermoelectric Generation for Passenger Vehicles
title_fullStr Experiments on Waste Heat Thermoelectric Generation for Passenger Vehicles
title_full_unstemmed Experiments on Waste Heat Thermoelectric Generation for Passenger Vehicles
title_short Experiments on Waste Heat Thermoelectric Generation for Passenger Vehicles
title_sort experiments on waste heat thermoelectric generation for passenger vehicles
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8779123/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35056272
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/mi13010107
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