scholarly journals Thermoelectric Harvesting Using Warm-Blooded Animals in Wildlife Tracking Applications

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2769
Author(s):  
Eiko Bäumker ◽  
Pascal Beck ◽  
Peter Woias

This paper focuses on the design of an optimized thermal interface for a thermoelectric energy harvesting system mounted at endothermic animals. In this application scenario the mammal’s fur reduces the heat flux from the animal’s body through a thermoelectric generator (TEG) to the ambient air. This requires an adapted design of the thermal interface between TEG and body surface, to increase its thermal conductivity without harming the animal. For this purpose the thermal conductivity through a mammal’s fur is determined with a specially designed heatsink. An analytical model is built to predict the resulting thermal resistances and is validated with experimental results for two different fur lengths. We show that an optimized design of the thermal interface reduces its thermal resistance up to 38% compared to a trivial design while lowering its weight for about 23%. It is found that the most important design parameter of such a thermal connector is the ability to slide into the fur.

2014 ◽  
Vol 986-987 ◽  
pp. 1163-1168
Author(s):  
Qi Zhang ◽  
Amen Agbossou

This paper presents a typical application for a newly developed thermoelectric energy harvesting system. The proposed solar thermoelectric generator (TEG) operates with phase change material (PCM) day and night. An energy management system was connected with the TEG to increase the output voltage while the harvested power was used to drive a wireless transmitter. The wireless receiver controlled the switch of a water tap which functions as a smart cooler of a photovoltaic cell. This study demonstrates a way of using micro-energy to improve macro-energy production smartly.


2013 ◽  
Vol 772 ◽  
pp. 731-734
Author(s):  
Shi Zhong Guo ◽  
Kai Xie ◽  
Ying Hao Ye ◽  
Xiao Ping Li

This paper presents a ultra low voltage resonant converter for thermoelectric energy harvesting.A key challenge in designing energy harvesting system is that thermoelectric generators output a very low voltage (-0.3V~0.3V). Therefore, a power converter is used to boost the output voltage of the energy transducer and transfer energy into an energy buffer for storage. The converter operates from input voltages ranging from-500mV to-60mV and 60mV to 500mV while supplying a 4.2 V DC output. The converter consumes 88μW of quiescent power, delivers up to 1.6 (1.8) mW of output power, and is 65(67)% efficient for a-100mV and 100mV input, respectively.


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