Performance study of thermoelectric dehumidification system integrated with heat pipe heatsink

Abstract

The thermoelectric (TE) cooler is a key component in a TE dehumidifier system. This study represents an experimental investigation on the performance of the TE dehumidifier system integrated with heat pipe heatsink. The system is composed of TE modules, fin heatsink, and heat pipe heatsinks. A rectangular fin heatsink is attached to the cold side of TE modules, while the heat pipe heatsink are mounted to the hot side. Air circulates from the test chamber through the cold-side heatsink to remove moisture, and heat pipe heatsink are used to dissipate heat from the hot side of the TE modules. The effect of relevant parameters such as electrical current input to the TE modules and cold air flow rate on the system's performance is studied. It is found that the cold air flow rate and the electrical current input to the TE modules have the highest impact on the system's performance. Improvements to the coefficient of performance (COP) and cooling capacity of the system can be achieved by using heat pipe heatsinks. Experimental results show that the optimum occurs at 3 A of electrical current input to the TE modules and 1.34 g/s of cold air flow rate with corresponding cooling capacity of 93.1 W, yielding an effectiveness of 2.638E-07 L/J and a coefficient of performance (COP) of 1.1.