engleski

Experimental characterisation of thermoelectric generators for wearable technology applications

The rapid development is shrinking the size of electronic devices to the level that they can be worn on the body. Such devices, also known as wearables, usually comprise sensors, communication devices and e.g. medical diagnostic devices. Wearable devices require a wearable power source as well. Apart from the conventional battery, the power needed for such devices can be generated on the body itself, i.e., it can reply on energy harvesting principles. A commonly used environmental energy source that can be efficiently harvested and used to power wearable technology devices is waste heat [1, 2]. In fact, thermal energy is emanated by multiple sources such as machines (combustion, friction), pipes (hot medium), radioactive materials, but also from human and animal bodies due to metabolism. The latter heat sources are particularly interesting for wearable technologies’ applications. To convert waste heat into electrical energy, thermoelectric generators (TEGs) are hence commonly used. These devices use the Seebeck effect to generate electrical current from the available heat flow [1, 2]. An experimental set-up is developed in this work to characterise three types of TEG devices. In the devised set-up, heat is applied on the hot side of the TEGs and dissipated from their cold side via a heatsink. The used range of temperatures is thereby selected to cover the conditions found in actual energy harvesting applications. The temperatures on both sides of the TEGs are measured with thermocouples and via thermal imaging. The experiments are thus conducted for various load resistances. The measurement of the attained voltages is enabled by employing a LabView® virtual instrument (VI) that allows also calculating the respective electrical currents, the resulting powers and the energy conversion efficiencies. The obtained results will be used to establish the optimal working conditions of the analysed TEGs in the foreseen wearable applications.

Energy harvesting, thermoelectric generator, Seebeck effect, wearable technology

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