Dalarna University's logo and link to the university's website

du.sePublications
Change search
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • chicago-author-date
  • chicago-note-bibliography
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf
Thermoelectric Generators: A comparison of electrical power outputs depending on temperature.
Dalarna University, School of Information and Engineering.
Dalarna University, School of Information and Engineering.
2021 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

Today many processes generate a lot of waste heat, for example industries or cars. One way to make this thermal energy useful is to transform it into electrical energy with a thermoelectric generator (TEG) or thermoelectric cooler (TEC). This technology is not used in any large scale today, but a lot of research is being done on the subject. The technology is based on the Seebeck effect and uses a temperature difference between two sides of an element to generate an electrical current. The reason that the research has gained more attention in recent years is because of the increasing electricity prices and the diminishing natural resources. Other benefits are that they run quietly and do not demand much maintenance.Another area where this technology could be useful is in off-grid cabins where it is easy to generate a lot of thermal energy by burning wood, but electrical energy is in high demand.In this thesis two different types of TEGs and one type of TEC are tested to investigate how much power they generate at different temperature differences, how well they meet the specified values in their respective data sheet and what their power per euro value is. For this, an experimental setup was made with:- An induction plate to increase the temperature on the hot side.- A CPU-fan, to reduce the temperature on the cold side.- Two temperature sensors (one for measuring the hot temperature and one for the cold one).- An electric circuit featuring a voltmeter, an amperemeter and an adjustable resistor (rheostat).The results show that, for this experiment the highest received power (6,38 W) comes from the medium-priced element but the highest power per euro comes from the lowest priced element (1,16 W/€). A quality problem for the lowest priced element was that parts of the solder melted when the temperature exceeded 225 °C. Another problem was that the induction plate was unable to provide enough heat for the most expensive of the elements to reach the temperature for which the retailer supplies their measured data.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2021.
Keywords [en]
Waste heat, thermoelectric generator, thermoelectric cooler, Seebeck effect.
National Category
Energy Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-38031OAI: oai:DiVA.org:du-38031DiVA, id: diva2:1592174
Subject / course
Energy Technology
Available from: 2021-09-08 Created: 2021-09-08 Last updated: 2025-10-09

Open Access in DiVA

fulltext(1907 kB)2500 downloads
File information
File name FULLTEXT01.pdfFile size 1907 kBChecksum SHA-512
f26ca49bb0009fd3a91e286d6e3001c8561a4376d9e69e10a8b1fb1e68b2445e1842a40b2d598561c302ad3ded48b46763e6c4b5b685d1badcd73b23aaa1d1a3
Type fulltextMimetype application/pdf

By organisation
School of Information and Engineering
Energy Engineering

Search outside of DiVA

GoogleGoogle Scholar
Total: 2507 downloads
The number of downloads is the sum of all downloads of full texts. It may include eg previous versions that are now no longer available

urn-nbn

Altmetric score

urn-nbn
Total: 629 hits
CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • chicago-author-date
  • chicago-note-bibliography
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf