Development of a powerful miniature hydrogen catalytic combustion powered thermoelectric generator

Abstract

Rapid development of portable electronics promotes the R&D of micro/miniature power sources with high energy density. The high mass energy density and zero emission characteristic of hydrogen show a huge potential to develop powerful portable hydrogen-based power sources. A miniature hydrogen catalytic combustion powered thermoelectric generator (CCP-TEG) is designed and tested in detail. An outstanding catalytic core is prepared with a newly proposed method on the basis of combining H2PtCl6 solution and foamed transition metal. Such catalytic core is demonstrated to provide high combustion temperature, complete combustion, and sufficient heat flux for power generation. Several parameters including input power, equivalent ratio, cooling mode, and load resistance are investigated to clarify their influences on the combustion temperature, electric power, and various efficiencies (combustion, heat collection, TE, and overall efficiencies) of the hydrogen CCP-TEG. The developed hydrogen CCP-TEG is able to generate an electric power of 20.7 W with an overall efficiency of 2.04%, filling the research gap of generating large electric power (>10 W) with sufficiently high overall efficiency (>2%) in the research field of hydrogen CCP-TEG. The generated electric power and overall efficiency are much higher than those in previous hydrogen CCP-TEGs. The prepared catalytic core remains excellent functionality after running for 30 h, and the combustion temperature is as high as 918 K, which ensures the sufficiently high temperature difference for powerful power generation. This study is conducted to illustrate a concrete method on developing a powerful hydrogen CCP-TEG, and to identify further research directions.