Experimental analysis of one and two-stage thermoelectric heat pumps to enhance the performance of a thermal energy storage

Abstract

This experimental study demonstrates the possibility to enhance the performance of a low-temperature thermal energy storage system (∼160 °C) based on airflow heating using electrical heaters by including thermoelectric technology. An improvement of the 17 % on COP is reached by using an optimized thermoelectric heat pump system to preheat the airflow, consisting of three one-stage and three pyramidal two-stage thermoelectric heat pumps sequentially installed along the airflow that is heating.This research experimentally analyses and compares the COP of three different configurations of thermoelectric heat pumps: one-stage, square two-stage, and pyramidal two-stage thermoelectric heat pumps. The experimental study aims to characterize the operation of each configuration for heating an airflow of 16.5 m³/h at 25 °C as ambient temperature. To that purpose, the airflow inlet temperature, voltage supply, and voltage ratio between stages have been modified.The experimental results show that for 25 °C as inlet temperature the one-stage thermoelectric heat pump has the best performance with a maximum generated heat of 78 W. Whereas, a two-stage thermoelectric heat pump is required when the inlet temperature increases. At 40 °C as inlet temperature, the square two-stage configuration provides the best performance with a voltage ratio of 2, which reaches a COP of 3.29 generating only 20 W of heat. However, the pyramidal two-stage configuration is able to achieve the maximum heat outputs with a voltage ratio of 1, generating 172; 161; 149 and 138 W, with corresponding COP values of 1.17; 1.16; 1.14 and 1.11 for inlet temperatures of 25; 40; 55 and 70 °C. This configuration is the one that achieves the greatest COP values with high inlet temperatures.