Thermodynamic and economic assessment of an integrated thermoelectric generator and the liquefied natural gas production process

The current research deals with the thermodynamic and economic assessments of an integrated thermoelectric generator system with the liquefied natural gas production process. The main aim of the present work is investigation the influence of the thermoelectric generators modules location, in a liquefied natural gas production cycle, on the thermodynamic and economic criteria. A Matlab code has been developed to assess the integrated system performance. Suggested integrated systems include adding the thermoelectric generators between the condensers and evaporators (Case I) and adding the thermoelectric generators between the condensers and ambient air (Case II). The results show that the position of the thermoelectric generators considerably influences the system performance. The results indicates that in Case I (with adding thermoelectric generators between condenser and evaporator) the system performance deteriorate drastically. The results for Case II exhibit that the coefficient of performance increases with an increase in x value. Moreover, economic analysis of employment of thermoelectric generators in liquefaction cycle indicates that with thermoelectric generator cost of 1 $/W the payback rate of investment is less than 2 years (1.29 years).