A Free-Standing, Silent, Micro/Mesoscale Combustion-Powered Thermoelectric Generator Based on Natural Convection Cooling

Abstract

In recent years, the world has become increasingly interested in power generation using thermoelectric generators (TEG) because of the advantage of converting heat directly to electricity. In this work, experimental studies have been carried out on micro/mesoscale combustor-powered thermoelectric generators (MCP-TEG) to evaluate the influence of different types of heat sinks on the cold side of MCP-TEG. The micro/mesoscale combustor was connected with Bi2Te3 based TEG1-12708 thermoelectric modules from both sides along with a heat sink on the cold side of the modules. The system uses natural convection cooling with a flat-plate aluminum heat sink. The MCP-TEG generates electrical power of 0.242 W with an overall efficiency of 0.3% at a hot-end temperature of 351 K. Power load feature and time history tests are conducted to evaluate the performance of the MCP-TEG system and comparisons of various related studies were made.