Study of the influence of heat exchangers' thermal resistances on a thermoelectric generation system

In this paper, a computational study of the influence of the heat exchangers' thermal resistances (in both the hot and cold side) on the efficiency of a thermoelectric generation device has been carried out. For this purpose, a computational model has been developed. This model uses the numerical method of finite differences to simulate the performance of the thermoelectric generation system, including the heat exchangers, the heat source and the heat sink. The accuracy of this computational model was experimentally verified, by constructing and testing a prototype. It was obtained that the maximum error between experimental and simulated values of electric power generated is lower than 5%. The generation of thermoelectric power, using as heat source the heat of the smoke from a paper mill's combustion boiler, has been studied too. The results demonstrated that it is possible to generate about I kW per meter of chimney height, that is, about 300 W/m(2). Therefore, it can be stated that this device has good prospects for the future. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.