A Novel Design of Thermoelectric Generator for Automotive Waste Heat Recovery

Abstract

With progressively stringent fuel consumption regulations, many researchers and engineers are focusing on the employment of waste heat recovery technologies for automotive applications. Regarded as a promising method of waste heat recovery, the thermoelectric generator (TEG) has been given increasing attention over the whole automotive industry for the last decade. In this study, we first give a brief review of improvements in thermoelectric materials and heat exchangers for TEG systems. We then present a novel design for a concentric cylindrical TEG system that addresses the existing weaknesses of the heat exchanger. In place of the typical square-shaped thermoelectric module, our proposed concentric cylindrical TEG system uses an annular thermoelectric module and employs the advantages of the heat pipe to enhance the heat transfer in the radial direction. The simulations we carried out to verify the performance of the proposed system showed better power output among the existing TEG system, and a comparison of water-inside and gas-inside arrangements showed that the water-inside concentric cylindrical TEG system produced a higher power output.

Thermoelectric Power Generators: State-of-the-Art, Heat Recovery Method, and Challenges

“…Hiang et al, 2018 [95] This paper presents the history and the achievement of TEG development in vehicles during a 7 year program on waste heat recovery incorporating TEG in a BMW X6 and a Lincoln MKT. Throughout this program, several models of TEG were demonstrated, and examined.…”

Experimental study on cascade utilization of ship's waste heat based on TEG‐ORC combined cycle

“…Type P e (kW) Load (%) According to the operating parameters of the main propulsion system of some bulk carriers as shown in Table 1, the waste heat of ships has the characteristics of large temperature gradient, huge recoverable volumes, and various properties. In order to make up for the limitations of traditional waste heat recovery methods, based on the previous research, [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][24][25][26][27] this article proposes a waste heat cascade recovery system based on TEG-ORC combined cycle, and discusses the main performance parameters such as system output power, thermal efficiency, power generation cost, waste heat utilization rate of flue gas through experimental research, which provides reference for future practical ship application.…”

“…At present, the conversion efficiency of waste heat recovery device based on TEG is not high and the amount of waste heat utilization is limited. In order to improve its performance, based on their previous research of automobile exhaust waste heat recovery, [5][6][7][8][9][10][11] Yan and Liu proposed a HP-TEG system for multiple kinds of ship waste heat recovery, and carried out simulation and experimental research. [12][13][14][15][16] Girgin et al 17 selected seven different ORC working fluids to carry out experimental performance research, and finally proposed an ORC waste heat utilization system with high output performance under different heat loads.…”

Термоэлектрические свойства твердых растворов с катионным и анионным замещением на основе слоистого тетрадимитоподобного соединения GeSnSb-=SUB=-4-=/SUB=-Te-=SUB=-8-=/SUB=-

“…При этом стоит учитывать, что каждый материал имеет максимум термоэлектрической добротности в определенной области температур, что определяет область его применения [15][16][17].…”