Enhanced cooling by applying the radiative sky cooler to both ends of the thermoelectric cooler

Abstract

An implementation that allocates the radiative sky cooler (RSC) to both the cold side and hot side of a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) is proposed, thus forming the 2RSC-TEC hybrid system. Each RSC in this system serves a unique purpose; The RSC at the TEC cold side generates additional cooling power, and the RSC at the TEC hot side dissipates the waste heat primarily by blackbody radiation. The ultimate aim of this implementation is to improve the overall cooling performance, and the key advantage lies in the viable passive process for heat dissipation at the TEC hot side. A steady-state model is developed to analyze the system performance in terms of many design parameters, including the RSC surface areas on the two TEC sides, the convective coefficient of air, TEC power consumption and the number of TEC modules. It is found that the proposed system yielded up to 40 W/m2 cooling capacity for a 10 K temperature difference; This value is double that obtained by a standalone RSC, and an optimal TEC power consumption exists to yield it. Although increasing the hot side RSC surface area decreased the cooling capacity, a minimum requirement exists to ensure sufficient heat dissipation.