PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF HOT AIR THERMOELECTRIC GENERATOR USING BIOMASS ENERGY SOURCE

Abstract

Thermoelectric generators are solid-state devices that convert heat into electricity using the Seebeck effect, when there is a temperature difference across a thermoelectric material. This research designed an experimentally tested a thermoelectric hot air generator using sixteen SP1848-27145 modules in two parallel strings. The system consists of a biomass combustion chamber, hot air exhauster, hot and cold side heat exchangers. Voltage, current and temperatures in the combustion chamber, hot air heat exhauster, hot side heat exchanger and cold side heat sink were measured. The hot air exhauster, hot side heat sink and cold side maximum temperatures are 178.3°C, 69.2°C and 44.5°C respectively yielding an open circuit voltage of 64 V and current of 1.99 A in the course of the experiment. The thermal performance of the designed hot air exhauster, hot side heat exchanger and cold side heat were simulated using ANSYS Fluent, for pictorial representation of their temperature contours.