Generation of thermoelectricity for autonomous heating systems

这项建议旨在研究和优化热电合金，以实现热电的高效发电。该提案的中心焦点是设计和制造热电发电机(TEG)，这些发电机将被整合到石油和天然气家庭供暖系统中，这将使它们在停电情况下实现自主。TEG能够在相当低的温度(约100摄氏度)下收集供暖系统废气的部分热能，这是优化供暖系统整体效率所必需的。实施基于TEGS的高效和自主供暖系统将为所有加拿大人目前面临的不安全状况提供一个解决方案，并提供额外的好处，即节省能源，这将对仍有可能回收的热能产生重大影响。由于我们过去获得的用于冷却应用的挤压式热电合金具有优异的(已经测试的)机械性能，我们可以预见，可以找到并加工出足够的合金来生产极短支腿的模块(大约是目前实践中所达到的4倍)。这种独特的优势，在保持优异的热电性能和非常低的成本的同时，使我们能够预测高效、实用的模块的可行性，该模块面积相当小，将提供超过200W的输出能量来运行加热系统，而不需要电网。

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.