SBIR Phase II: High Efficiency, Compact Thermoelectric Generator (TEG)

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）二期项目将致力于热电发电（TEG）的新型系统设计架构的全面开发，以回收发动机的废气废热并将其转化为电能。这项工作将建立在第一阶段的成果之上，其中包括一个部分概念验证原型的成功可行性演示，以及计算机模型的开发和验证，从而证明了这个新系统技术平台的可行性。该技术可以在非常紧凑和经济高效的形式中实现高效性能，并且可以轻松扩展容量。第二阶段的工作将包括改进子系统，设计、建模、制造和测试用于乘用车应用的完整TEG系统。此外，将通过将TEG应用于更大的车辆平台来探索可扩展性。该项目的广泛/商业影响在于，业界发现开发符合市场性能、可靠性、紧凑性和低成本指标的TEG系统设计非常具有挑战性，特别是对于汽车应用。拟议的TEG系统架构，包括一个独特集成到剩余系统中的新型废气热交换器，显示出满足这些指标的强大潜力，从而显著降低了车辆的油耗和排放。通过进入大型乘用车市场，最初的市场引进很容易在10万辆左右，如果产品成本极低，则更多。回收废气余热用于运输的更广泛机会包括中型和重型车辆，这也可以通过这种可扩展的技术来解决。其他相关市场包括固定式和移动式发电机组、固体氧化物燃料电池，以及潜在的飞机推进系统。这种商业影响将极大地支持国家能源独立和温室气体减排。

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will pursue the full development of a novel system design architecture for thermoelectric generation (TEG) to recover exhaust waste heat from engines and convert it to electricity. The effort will build upon Phase I achievements, which included a successful feasibility demonstration of a fractional proof-of-concept prototype and development and validation of a computer model, thereby proving the viability of this new system technology platform. The technology enables efficient performance within a very compact and cost-effective form that also can easily scale in capacity. The Phase II effort will involve improving subsystems and designing, modeling, fabricating, and testing a full TEG system for a passenger car application. Furthermore, scalability will be explored by applying the TEG to a larger vehicle platform.the broader/commercial impact of this project lie in the fact that industry has found it very challenging to develop a TEG system design that meets market metrics of performance, reliability, compactness, and low-cost, particularly for automotive applications. The proposed TEG system architecture, which includes a novel exhaust gas heat exchanger uniquely integrated into the remaining system, shows strong potential for meeting such metrics, and thereby achieving significant reduction in vehicle fuel consumption and emissions. By penetrating the large passenger vehicle market, initial market introduction could easily range in the 100,000s and much more if the cost of the product is extremely low. Broader opportunities to recover exhaust waste heat for transportation include medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, which may also be addressed by this scalable technology. Other adjacent markets include stationary and mobile generator sets, solid-oxide fuel cells, and potentially, aircraft propulsion systems. This commercial impact would greatly support national energy independence and greenhouse gas reductions.