An Experimental Method for Fast Evaluating Thermoelectric Generators Using one pair of P- and N-type Legs

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Ting Zhao ◽  
Kewen Li ◽  
Yuhao Zhu ◽  
Lin Jia ◽  
Xiaoyong Hou ◽  
...  

Abstract Thermoelectric generators (TEG) are widely used in many industries. The voltage and output power of TEG chips are critical indicators to evaluate the performance of TEGs. The conventional method is to directly test the output voltage and power of the whole TEG chip that contains 127 pairs of PN (P- and N-type) legs (127-PN-TEG). However, the assembling of these PN legs is very time-consuming. In order to reduce experimental time and the consumption of TEG materials, we proposed an experimental method. We developed the test apparatus for the rapid evaluation of TEG performance using a TEG chip with a single pair of PN legs (1-PN-TEG). We made several 1-PN-TEGs and 127-PN-TEGs using the same thermoelectric material (bismuth telluride). We then measured the voltage and the power of these 1-PN-TEGs and 127-PN-TEGs, respectively. The experimental results were compared and analyzed. The comparison showed that the voltage of 127-PN-TEG is equal to the voltage of 1-PN-TEG times 127, which implies that we could use the test data of 1-PN-TEG to evaluate the performance of 127-PN-TEG. Using the experimental device developed in this paper, we also studied the effects of the PN leg area (cross-sectional area of PN legs) and the pressure applied over the TEGs on the output power of 1-PN-TEG. The experimental results showed that the power per unit area decreases with an increase in the 1-PN-TEG's PN leg area when the temperature difference between the hot and cold sides was constant. Under a specific temperature difference conditions, the open-circuit voltage and the output power will increase with the pressure applied on the TEG chips.

Micromachines ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 366
Author(s):  
Yang Xia ◽  
Yun Tian ◽  
Lanbin Zhang ◽  
Zhihao Ma ◽  
Huliang Dai ◽  
...  

We present an optimized flutter-driven triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) for wind energy harvesting. The vibration and power generation characteristics of this TENG are investigated in detail, and a low cut-in wind speed of 3.4 m/s is achieved. It is found that the air speed, the thickness and length of the membrane, and the distance between the electrode plates mainly determine the PTFE membrane’s vibration behavior and the performance of TENG. With the optimized value of the thickness and length of the membrane and the distance of the electrode plates, the peak open-circuit voltage and output power of TENG reach 297 V and 0.46 mW at a wind speed of 10 m/s. The energy generated by TENG can directly light up dozens of LEDs and keep a digital watch running continuously by charging a capacitor of 100 μF at a wind speed of 8 m/s.


Author(s):  
Budiyanto Budiyanto ◽  
Fadliondi Fadliondi

This paper explains the experimental investigation to improve the output power of solar cell using cooling and light reflection from mirrors. The results show that by adding mirror, the current and output power of solar cell increase but the open circuit voltage and maximum power voltage decrease due to heat. By adding cooling, the open circuit voltage and the maximum power voltage are improved, so the output power also increases.


2012 ◽  
Vol 51 (10S) ◽  
pp. 10NF08 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takahiro Kato ◽  
Takuma Miyake ◽  
Daisuke Tashima ◽  
Tatsuya Sakoda ◽  
Masahisa Otsubo ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 503 ◽  
pp. 71-74
Author(s):  
Xing Qiang Zhao ◽  
Zhi Yu Wen ◽  
Zhi Gang Du

A novel miniaturized piezoelectric wind flutter generator is proposed which consisted of a flexible beam and a PZT cantilever. The working principle is based on flexible beam flutter, which can amplify the PZT cantilever vibration. A prototype was tested in a wind tunnel. It is found that there are three behavior states with wind speed increasing, and flutter behavior takes place when wind speed varies between the critical wind speed Uc1and Uc2, an empirical formula was obtained about the critical speed Uc1. The open circuit voltage and power were measured. The device can generate 794μW output power with 30kΩ resistor in a wind of speed 20m/s, power density is 139μW/cm3.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 402
Author(s):  
Doudou N. Luta ◽  
Atanda K. Raji

The concept of power tracking was at first applied to renewable power systems and especially those based on solar and wind to extract as much power as possible from them. Both types of power systems operate on the principle of converting either solar or wind into electricity. Thus, their output power is direct dependent on the solar radiation for solar power systems and on the wind speed for wind generators. To maintain efficient system operations, the output power of these power systems is optimized through maximum power tracking techniques. In the similar vein, fuel cell stacks display nonlinear output powers resulting from internal limitations and operating parameters such as tem-perature, hydrogen and oxygen partial pressures and humidity levels, etc., leading to a reduced system performance. It is critical to extract as much power as possible from the stack, thus, to prevent also an excessive fuel use. To ensure that, the power converter interfaced to the stack must be able to self-adjust its parameters continuously, hence modifying its voltage and current depending upon the maximum power point position. Diverse techniques are utilized to extract maximum power from the fuel-cell stack.  In this paper, a fractional open circuit voltage and fuzzy rule based maximum power tracking techniques are considered and compared. The proposed system consists of a 50 kW Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cell interfaced to a DC-to-DC boost converter. The converter is designed to deliver 1.2 kV from 625 V input voltage. The simulation is carried out under Matlab/Simulink environment.  


Electronics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 1802
Author(s):  
Ling Bu ◽  
Shengjiang Quan ◽  
Jiarong Han ◽  
Feng Li ◽  
Qingzhao Li ◽  
...  

The fractional open-circuit voltage (FOCV) method is commonly adopted to track maximal power point of photovoltaic systems due to easy implementation and cost-effectiveness. However, the FOCV method is confronted with unstable output power and limited tracking accuracy. This paper proposes a novel on-site traversal FOCV method with uninterrupted output power and increased tracking accuracy through simulation and experimental verifications. Each solar cell is connected with a bypass diode and switching circuitry, so that specific solar cell can be traced and measured consecutively for determining its maximal power point (MPP). MATLAB/Simulink simulation results show that, in the time-varying irradiance case, the proposed method achieves a low ripple factor of 0.13% in 11–13 h and 0.88% in 9–15 h, under the typical 24 h irradiance curve. In the spatial-varying irradiance case, the accuracy of the proposed method reaches 99.85%. Compared with other FOCV methods, like pilot cell and semi pilot cell methods, the proposed method is of higher accuracy with a limited ripple effect. Experimental results show that this method can effectively trace different output performance of specific solar cell while generating stable output voltage with a low ripple factor of 1.55%, proving its compatibility with distributed sensing and applicability in smart photovoltaic systems.


2013 ◽  
Vol 667 ◽  
pp. 165-171
Author(s):  
Zurianti A. Rahman ◽  
Khaulah Sulaiman ◽  
Mohamad Rusop ◽  
Ahmad Shuhaimi

The studies on the thermoelectric (TE) properties of 3,4,9,10-Perylenetetracarboxylic dianhydride (PTCDA) and a conducting polymer Poly(ethylenedioxythiopene): poly(styrenesulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS)–PH1000 are presented. PTCDA and PEDOT:PSS have been used as a potential n-type material and a p-type material for the TE device, respectively. The Seebeck coefficients, open circuit voltage and the output power have been obtained for the fabricated TE device. The Seebeck effect was observed on this TE device where the output power in the range of 1 nW/cm2 to 5 nW/cm2,was successfully deduced from this TE device. It was found that the association of PEDOT:PSS and PTCDA have been acting well in this TE device. However, a higher TE performance, in the future could be developed, by applying a thermal treatment and introducing a suitable dopant to this n-type material which may increase the mobility of the electrons and the Seebeck coefficient.


2012 ◽  
Vol 538-541 ◽  
pp. 60-63 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhao Kun Cai ◽  
Ping Fan ◽  
Zhuang Hao Zheng ◽  
Xing Min Cai ◽  
Dong Ping Zhang ◽  
...  

N-type Bi2Te3 and p-type Sb2Te3 thermoelectric thin films have been prepared by RF and DC co-sputtering. The Seebeck coefficient of n-type Bi2Te3 and p-type Sb2Te3 thin films is about -122 μVK-1 and 108 μVK-1, the power factor is about 0.82×10-3 Wm-1K-2 and 1.60×10-3 Wm-1K-2. Then, the films have been selected to fabricate the thin film thermoelectric generator. The results show that the open-circuit voltage of 12.2 mV and the output power of 3.32 μW are obtained for a thin film generator with the temperature difference at 60 K.


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