Developing A Compact Thermoelectricity Conversion System For A Large-Scale Applications

Geothermal energy, waste heat from chemical process, metallurgical refinery, etc., represents enormous amount of low-quality thermal resources. Recovering or using of energy from low-quality thermal resources remains unsettled. Thermoelectricity conversion by using of thermoelectric generators (TEGs) receives increasingly attention over the recent decades due to TEGs own advantages of high reliability, scalability and having no moving parts, etc. In view of the low conversion efficiency of thermoelectric materials, a large-scale commercial thermoelectric power generation system seems to be unrealistic, while the current work tries to address large-scale applications of TEGs towards using of low-quality thermal energy. A thermoelectricity conversion system with high compactness will be put forward, on which relevant to issues of assembling, reducing contacting thermal resistance, etc., will be tried to addressed. Performance of the system will be evaluated on the basis of experimental tests on the prototype of the system.