Electrical, thermomechanical and cost analyses of a low-cost thermoelectric generator

Abstract

High cost, and scarcity of high-performance thermoelectric materials are some of the reasons that hinder large scale production of thermoelectric devices. In view thereof, a novel thermoelectric module is proposed. The new module is composed of four thermoelectric materials; two of which are costly but show high-performance at low temperature, while the other two are cheap but show low-performance at room temperature. This combination is aimed at reducing the dependency on the costly and scarce thermoelectric materials, at the same time ensuring good output performance. The thermoelectric and thermomechanical performances of the proposed module are investigated. The analysis revealed that the percentage cost reduction is higher than the percentage reduction in the output power of the module. Furthermore, over the range of the temperature considered in this study, the maximum von Mises stress in the module is lower than the yield stress of the materials. Likewise, cost-power ratio of 0.952 $/W is achieved.