Abstract
This paper presents the development and assessment of two low-cost, travelling wave, thermoacoustic generators operating by waste heat energy from cooking stove. One powered by waste heat from a propane-driven stove, the other powered by waste heat from a wood-burning stove. The propane-driven thermoacoustic generator was successfully demonstrated to produce approximately 15 watts of electricity using a commercial audio loudspeaker. The wood-burning thermoacoustic generator was successfully constructed and tested to generate a maximum of 22.7 watts of electricity under a pressurised condition. The latter has a high potential to be used by over 1.5 billion people in rural communities for applications such as LED lighting, charging mobile phones or charging a 12V battery. A comprehensive power assessment of the propane-driving generator as well as the development and performance assessment of the wood-burning generator are described throughout this article.
Highlights
Thermoacoustic generators use heat to create acoustic waves which are harnessed to produce electricity
This paper presents the development and assessment of two low-cost, travelling wave, thermoacoustic generators operating by waste heat energy from cooking stove
The working fluid used for the thermoacoustic engines (TAE) system was air
Summary
Thermoacoustic generators use heat to create acoustic waves which are harnessed to produce electricity. Of the two known types of thermoacoustic heat engine, namely standing wave heat engine and the traveling wave heat engine, the former has been investigated more early and more intensively Since the latter may overcome the inherent irreversibility of the former, the well-known torus configuration traveling wave engine developed by Backhaus and Swift has proved that it has a high efficiency of 41% of the Carnot factor at a high operating temperature of about 725 ̊C. At these elevated temperature thermoacoustic has to compete with more mature devices like Stirling engines and are unsuitable with the lower flame temperatures of wood. His proposal made this technology applicable on low temperature source such as 70 ̊C for solar (without concentration) and waste heat, up to 400 ̊C for exhaust gas of a CHP system
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