| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this research is to analyze the performance thermoelectric power generation systems, and to use solar-selective coating and thermally parallel stacking arrangement to improve the efficiency of power generation. In simulation, we built a model of a commercial thermoelectric module, TGM-199-1.4-1.5, simulated real-time power generation, and analyzed thermal effect of a solar thermoelectric generator (STEG). By using solar-selective coating materials with different absorptance and emittance, the thermal energy was varied absorbed by the system. Besides, by means of thermally parallel stacking arrangement, thermal energy can be transferred vertically downwards, making more efficient use of solar thermal energy. In the experiment, we successfully constructed a solar thermoelectric power generation system, with the treatments of solar-selective coating and thermally parallel stacking arrangement. The measured results agreed with the simulated ones.
According to the simulation results, it can be known that when a coating material with high absorptance and low emittance is used, the effective heat flux absorbed by the system can be increased, thereby increasing the open circuit voltage. According to the simulated and experimental results of the thermally parallel stacking arrangement, the more the number of stacked modules are, the higher the open circuit voltage is. Then, the conversion efficiency is also increased. The simulated results show that when 11 pieces of thermoelectric modules are stacked, the maximum output power is 0.71 W, and the conversion efficiency reaches 8.3%. | en_US |