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

该小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目将全面开发用于热电发电（TEG）的新型系统设计架构，以回收发动机的废热并将其转化为电力。 这项工作将建立在第一阶段的成就，其中包括一个成功的可行性演示的部分概念验证原型和开发和验证的计算机模型，从而证明了这个新的系统技术平台的可行性。 该技术在非常紧凑和具有成本效益的形式下实现了高效的性能，并且可以轻松扩展容量。 第二阶段的工作将涉及改进子系统和设计，建模，制造和测试一个完整的TEG系统的乘用车应用。 此外，将通过将TEG应用于更大的车辆平台来探索可扩展性。该项目的更广泛/商业影响在于，行业发现开发满足性能，可靠性，紧凑性和低成本的市场指标的TEG系统设计非常具有挑战性，特别是对于汽车应用。 所提出的TEG系统架构，其中包括一个新颖的废气热交换器独特地集成到其余的系统，显示出强大的潜力，以满足这些指标，从而实现显着减少车辆的燃料消耗和排放。 通过渗透大型乘用车市场，如果产品成本极低，最初的市场引入可以轻松达到10万辆甚至更多。 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。 其他邻近的市场包括固定和移动的发电机组、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.