A 39-W thermoelectric generator prototype has been realized and then installed in industrial plant for on-line trials. The prototype was developed as an energy harvesting demonstrator using low temperature cooling water waste heat as energy source. The objective of the research program is to measure the actual performances of this kind of device working with industrial water below 90 °C, as hot source, and fresh water at a temperature of about 15 °C, as cold sink. The article shows the first results of the research program. It was verified, under the tested operative conditions, that the produced electric power exceeds the energy required to pump the water from the hot source and cold sink to the thermoelectric generator unit if they are located at a distance not exceeding 50 m and the electric energy conversion efficiency is 0.33%. It was calculated that increasing the distance of the hot source and cold sink to the thermoelectric generator unit to 100 m the produced electric energy equals the energy required for water pumping, while reducing the distance of the hot source and cold sink to zero meters the developed unit produces an electric energy conversion efficiency of 0.61%.
Ferriere Nord S.p.A., a steel producer from ferrous scrap, in 1998 decided to start the "Zero Waste" project to transform the main process wastes into products to be re-used in a logic of circular economy. 20 years later, since "Zero Waste" project started, the main secondary materials of the EAF (Electric Arc Furnace) process have been reviewed and re-evaluated: the slag from EAF, the slag from ladle furnace, the EAF dust, the iron scale and the refractories. Many companies are now involved in dealing with these materials and established important and stable relations of symbiosis to prepare, transform and finally use them. A company network trusts on regular availability and quality of the new products: scrap dealers, lime producers, zinc producers, aggregates and asphalt producers, highway companies… Finally, reuse of these materials allows saving equivalent quantities of natural resources: iron ore, basalt, porphyry, limestone, zinc and lead minerals.
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