Passive cooling system for enhancement the energy conversion efficiency of thermo-electric generator

Abstract

This research paper examines the prospect of recovering the waste heat released from the industrial sector using thermoelectric generators. A practical case study of waste heat recovery from cement rotary kiln is applied. Arrays of TEGs can be longitudinally erected on secondary coaxial shell separated from kiln shell via an air gap. An experimental test rig has been established to test and evaluate the performance of the TEG. Two cooling methods, active and passive, have been considered. For the active cooling method, a forced closed-loop water cooling system is considered. A forced heat sink employed with passive cooling. Two main metrics are considered in the comparison; conversion efficiency and payback time. The main findings results confirmed that the performance of forced heat sink based passive is better than closed-loop water cooling system. The conversion efficiency has been increased by 5.8%. Also, the passive cooling decreases the payback time by 50.34 % compared with closed-water.