Heat Exchanger Optimization for Thermoelectric Generating Power System

Abstract

Thermoelectric generator (TEG) is commonly used to harvest or scavenge the remnant energy from waste heat sources, such as automotive exhaust systems, cooling line of power plants, ocean temperature difference, human body, and industrial processes. The performance of TEG depends on the thermoelectric material and structural configuration. To obtain the maximum power from TEG module, the optimized design of heat exchanger is essential to realize the working power generating system. Internal structure of the heat exchanger plays a critical role to determine the efficiency of TEG by enhancing heat transfer between the hot and cold sides of the TEG module. We studied the effect of internal fin structure in heat exchanger with hot water feeding condition to obtain the best performance of TEG module array using computational simulations and compared with the experiments. From the experiments, we achieved 2 times higher power generation efficiency with a reasonable fin structure in heat exchanger, compared to those bare exchanger. From this study, the optimized fin structure in heat exchanger in TEG system will enhance the net power output of TEG system for waste energy source, which will promote renewable energy transform to help climate change issues.