In recent years, an increasing concern of environmental issues of emissions, in particular global warming and the limitations of energy resources has resulted in extensive research into novel technologies of generating electrical power. Thermoelectric power generators have emerged as a promising alternative green technology due to their distinct advantages. Thermoelectric power generation offer a potential application in the direct conversion of waste-heat energy into electrical power where it is unnecessary to consider the cost of the thermal energy input. The application of this alternative green technology in converting waste-heat energy directly into electrical power can also improve the overall efficiencies of energy conversion systems. In this paper, a background on the basic concepts of thermoelectric power generation is presented and recent patents of thermoelectric power generation with their important and relevant applications to waste-heat energy are reviewed and discussed.

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a b s t r a c tA simple transportable hemispherical solar still was designed and fabricated, and its performance was experimentally evaluated under outdoors of Dhahran climatic conditions. It was found that over the hours of experimental testing through daytime, the daily distilled water output from the still ranged from 2.8 to 5.7 l/m 2 day. The daily average efficiency of the still reached as high as 33% with a corresponding conversion ratio near 50%. It was also found that the average efficiency of the still decreased by 8% when the saline water depth increased by 50%.

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Renewable & alternative non-conventional green energy technologies used for heat-pumping applications have shown real merits and received renewed interest in recent years especially in small-scale portable heating applications. Solar-driven thermoelectric heat pumping is one of these innovative technologies. In this paper, a thermoelectric heat pump that utilizes the Peltier effect has been designed, constructed and instrumented for suitable experimentation and characterization under Thunder Bay city extreme cold weather conditions in Canada. The thermoelectric test setup is powered using a renewable solar photovoltaic system and tested under different operating conditions. It was found that the PV-powered thermoelectric heat pump system has shown an acceptable performance with COP ranging from 0.98-1.22. Typical results showed that the average heat pumping power for the system was 72.1 W when the system was operated at an ambient temperature of-17 o C with an inside system temperature increased from approximately-5 o C to 25 o C.