Thermoelectric Generating System attached to a Carburizing Furnace at Komatsu Ltd., Awazu Plant

At the end of October 2009, KELK Ltd. started a field test of the thermoelectric generation system at a carburizing furnace of Komatsu Ltd., Awazu Plant. Residual carburizing gas based on CO, H-2 and N-2 is burned resulting that 20-30 kW range of flame constantly heats up the hot side of TEG. A single unit of TEG consists of 16 of the Bi-Te thermo-modules, each of which has a size of 50 x 50 x 4.2 mm(3) and can generate 2 4 W under the circumstance of 280 C and 30 C of hot side and cold side temperature, respectively [1]. 16 modules are separated into 4 groups and they are connected electrically depending on design concept, namely in case of focusing on reliability, parallel connection are used and in case of on simplicity and high-voltage transmission, series connection is preferably employed. The module is being life-time tested at various conditions. For instance, 10,000 of heat cycling under the hot side temperature between 250 and 50 degrees C with a constant cold side temperature at 30 degrees C gives within a few percent degrade. Both buck-and booster-type DC/DC converters controlled by one chip computer were set up and Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) was well facilitated to search for the maximum output power depending on the hot and cold temperature. The electric output power from the 16 modules is summed up to charge 4 lead storage batteries (12V-65 Lambda h) and then through DC/AC inverters electricity goes to LED light tubes inside the factory. 214 W can be generated and 180 W is delivered to the batteries