THERMAL SCIENCE

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Hao Ma

,

Hua Wang

STUDY ON THE PERFORMANCE OF SEMICONDUCTOR THERMOELECTRIC GENERATOR SYSTEM DRIVEN BY SALT GRADIENT SOLAR POND

ABSTRACT
The performance of a semiconductor thermoelectric generator system based on the lower convective zone of a salt gradient solar pond and ambient has been studied numerically and experimentally. According to the numerically solar pond temperature development results, the temperature differential range of the thermoelectric generator system ranges from 14°C to 36°C. The numerically results show that, with a load resistance of 2 Ω for each thermoelectric generator unit, among the four days selected, the temperature difference power generation system had the highest output power and conversion efficiency of 4.66 W and 2.95%, respectively, on October 1st. Based on the numerical results of the temperature developments salt gradient solar pond, thermoelectric power generation experimental set-up which operates under adjustable hot and cold reservoirs has been constructed. The experimental device runs under the conditions that the cold side temperatures of thermoelectric generator are 10°C, 24°C, and 38°C, and the load resistance is 10 Ω. The maximum current is 0.149 A, 0.159 A, and 0.124 A, the maximum voltage is 1.49 V, 1.59 V, and 1.24 V, respectively. The average deviations between the theoretical results and the experimental results of the current and voltage generated by the power generation system are 0.026 A, 0.023 A, 0.012 A, and 0.26 V, 0.23 V, 0.12 V, respectively.
KEYWORDS
salt gradient solar pond, semiconductor thermoelectric generator, thermoelectric conversion, power generation
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2024-03-04
PAPER REVISED: 2024-04-07
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2024-05-04
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2024-07-13
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI240304149M
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2024, VOLUME 28, ISSUE Issue 5, PAGES [4357 - 4368]
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Study on the performance of semiconductor thermoelectric generator system driven by salt gradient solar pond

© 2024 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence