Experimental Investigation of Heat Sink as a Heat Pipe to Improve Performance of Thermoelectric Generator

Abstract

Present study focuses on the thermoelectric generator (TEG) using heat pipe as heat sink and Waste heat can be used to generate electricity using thermoelectric generator (TEG). TEG utilizes the thermoelectric effect to generate electric power from a temperature difference across the device. The combined heat pipes thermo-electric generator (CHP-TEG) has been introduced in this study of recovering the free energy from the industrial and automobile waste heat. Two technologies identified to be of use for waste heat recovery are TEGs and heat pipes. Both TEGs and heat pipes are solid state, passive, silent, scalable and durable. The use of heat pipes can potentially reduce the thermal resistance and pressure losses in the system as well as temperature regulation of the TEGs and increased design flexibility. TEGs do have limitations such as low temperature limits and relatively low efficiency. Heat pipes do have limitations such as maximum rates of heat transfer and temperature limits. When used in conjunction, these technologies have the potential to create a completely solid state and passive waste heat recovery system. The conversion efficiency of thermoelectric generator is function of temperature difference (Heat source and heat sink temperature). The thermal performance of thermoelectric generator will be improved or enhanced by using heat pipe as a heat sink on thermoelectric generator.