Feasibility analysis of booster cavity for solar thermal-electric conversion device

Abstract

The Rankine cycle, as a common way of solar power generation, is receiving more and more attention. However, the adoption of a mechanical booster pump in the conventional Rankine cycle affects the compactness of the power system. Based on this, a new booster cavity is proposed in this paper for an integrated thermal-electric conversion device, to replace the mechanical booster pump. For this proposed structure, the pressurization of low pressure condensate liquid is achieved by utilizing the internal energy of high temperature and high pressure vapor. To verify its feasibility, the theoretical description of the physical process, mathematical modeling, simulation analysis, and experimental verification of the structure are presented in this paper. It can be found that the structure is workable, and no power transmission from an external energy source is required for the thermal-electric conversion device adopting this structure. Although the conversion efficiency of the proposed cycle is 15.23%, which is slightly lower than the 15.71% efficiency of the conventional Rankine cycle under the same operating condition, it is a true thermal driven power generation, which enables a more compact system.

Low-Grade Thermal Energy Harvesting and Self-Powered Sensing Based on Thermogalvanic Hydrogels

“…Due to the limitation of technology, a large amount of energy is wasted in the form of waste heat [ 129 , 130 ]. Thermogalvanic hydrogels, due to their thermal–electrical conversion capability, have been widely studied in recent years [ 131 , 132 , 133 , 134 , 135 , 136 ]. In a thermogalvanic hydrogel, the temperature dependence of the redox pair results in a massive amount of thermal energy capable of providing the conditions for continuous energy conversion.…”