Evaluation of Thermoelectric Generators under Mismatching Conditions

Due to the wide usability of thermoelectric generators (TEG) in the industry and research fields, it is plausible that mismatching conditions are present on the thermal surfaces of a TEG device, which induces negative-performance effects due to uneven surface temperature distributions. For this reas...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnergies (Basel) Vol. 14; no. 23; p. 8016
Main Authors Sanin-Villa, Daniel, Monsalve-Cifuentes, Oscar D., Henao-Bravo, Elkin E.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.12.2021
Subjects
Cold
Conductivity
Efficiency
Electric currents
Electric fields
Electric power
Electrical resistivity
Heat conductivity
Heat transfer
Mathematical models
mismatch
mismatching condition
numerical simulation
Open circuit voltage
P-type semiconductors
Partial differential equations
Semiconductor materials
Simulation
Surface temperature
TEG
Temperature
Temperature dependence
Temperature gradients
thermoelectric generator
Thermoelectric generators
Thermoelectricity
Voltage
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Summary:Due to the wide usability of thermoelectric generators (TEG) in the industry and research fields, it is plausible that mismatching conditions are present on the thermal surfaces of a TEG device, which induces negative-performance effects due to uneven surface temperature distributions. For this reason, the objective of this study is to characterize numerically the open-circuit electric output voltage of a TEG device when a mismatching condition is applied to both the cold and hot sides of the selected N and P-type semiconductor material Bi0.4Sb1.6Te3. A validated numerical simulation paired with a parametric study is conducted using the Thermal-Electric module of ANSYS 2020 R1, for which different thermal boundary and mismatching conditions are applied while considering the temperature-dependent thermoelectrical properties of the N and P-type material. The results show an inverse relationship between the open-circuit voltage and the mismatching temperature difference. When a mismatching condition is applied on the hot side of the TEG device, the temperature-dependent electrical resistance has lower values, deriving in higher voltage results (linear tendency) compared to a mismatching condition applied to the cold side (non-linear tendency).
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en14238016