Study of thermal insulation materials influence on the performance of thermoelectric generators by creating a significant effective temperature difference
Study of thermal insulation materials influence on the performance of thermoelectric generators by creating a significant effective temperature difference
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DOI：
10.1016/j.enconman.2020.112516
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发表时间：
2020-03
影响因子：
10.4
通讯作者：
Song Lv;Minghou Liu;Wei He;Xinlong Li;Wei Gong;S. Shen
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Song Lv;Minghou Liu;Wei He;Xinlong Li;Wei Gong;S. Shen
热电发电机是一种很有吸引力的热机，因为它可以通过塞贝克效应将热量直接转化为电能。然而，今天的热电发电机的能量转换效率明显低于传统的机械发动机。材料和器件是其改进的主要方向。虽然热电材料已经取得了一些进展，但实际的热电器件仍然停滞不前，效率相当低。本文建立了一个包含热损失的数学模型，用于讨论如何减少热损失以提高热电性能。为了减少和消除热损失的影响，研究热损失的影响，构建了填充不同绝缘填料的分段热电模块，验证了模型的准确性。研制了自制实验仪器，研究了降低模块热损失对热电转换性能的影响。结果表明，保温材料的填充有助于提高热电性能，气凝胶填充组件的效率比未填充组件的效率提高8.225%，添加理想的保温材料可使热电组件的效率提高9.12%。结果还表明，TE模组的性能取决于填充材料的导热系数和填充率。这些结果为实际热电模块的设计和改进提供了一些实用的指导。
Thermoelectric generator are attractive heat engines because they can convert heat directly into electricity via Seebeck effect. However, the energy conversion efficiency of today’s thermoelectric generators is significantly lower than that of conventional mechanical engines. Materials and devices are the main direction of its improvement. Although thermoelectric material has been making some progress, actual thermoelectric devices has remained stagnant with rather poor efficiencies. In this paper, a mathematical model containing heat losses ignored by previous studies are developed and used to discuss how to reduce heat losses to improved thermoelectric performance. In order to reduce and eliminate the impact of heat loss and study the effects of heat loss, the segmented thermoelectric modules filling with different insulation fillers are built to verify the accuracy of the model. Self-made experimental instruments are developed to study of the effect of reducing module heat loss on thermoelectric conversion performance. The results show that the filling of insulation materials makes contribution to the improvement of thermoelectric performance, the efficiency of aerogel filled module is 8.225% higher than that of unfilled module, and the efficiency of thermoelectric module can be improved up to 9.12% by adding ideal thermal insulation materials. The results also showed that the performance of TE module depends on the thermal conductivity of filling materials and its’ filling rate. Those results provided some practical guidelines for the design and improvement of practical thermoelectric modules.