Generation of thermoelectricity for autonomous heating systems

该提案旨在研究和优化热电合金，以有效产生热电。该提案的核心重点是设计和制造热电发电机（TEG），将其纳入石油和天然气家庭供暖系统，这将使它们在停电时实现自主。TEG能够在优化这种系统的整体效率所需的相当低的温度（约100 ℃）下收集加热系统的排气的部分热能。基于TEG的高效自主供暖系统的实施将为所有加拿大人目前面临的不安全状况提供解决方案，并提供节能的额外好处，这对于仍然可以回收的热能来说意义重大。由于我们过去获得的用于冷却应用的挤压热电合金的优异（已经测试的）机械性能，我们预见可以找到并加工足够的合金以生产具有极短腿的模块（比迄今为止在实践中实现的小约4倍）。这种独特的优势，同时保持出色的热电性能和非常低的成本，使我们能够预测具有合理小面积的高效实用模块的可行性，这些模块将提供超过200 W的输出能量来运行加热系统，而无需电网。

This proposal aims to research and optimize thermoelectric alloys for the efficient generation of thermoelectricity. The central focus of the proposal is the design and fabrication of thermoelectric generators (TEGs) to be incorporated in oil and natural gas home heating systems, which will render them autonomous under electricity power outages. TEGs are capable of collecting part of the thermal energy of the exhaust gases of a heating system at the rather low temperatures (around 100 C) necessary to optimize the overall efficiency of such system. The implementation of an efficient and autonomous heating system based on TEGs would provide a solution to a currently unsafe situation facing all Canadians, with the added bonus of providing energy savings which will be significant in terms of the thermal energy that can still potentially be recovered. Due to the excellent (already tested) mechanical properties of extruded thermoelectric alloys which we obtained in the past for cooling applications, we  foresee that adequate alloys can be found and processed in order to produce modules with extremely short legs (about a factor of 4 smaller that what has been achieved in practice so far). This unique advantage, while keeping excellent thermoelectric properties and a very low cost, enables us to predict the feasibility of efficient, practical modules with a reasonably small area which will provide in excess of 200W output energy to run heating systems without the requirement of the electric grid.