Efficiency improvement of combustion based thermoelectric generator device using convection effect

Abstract

In thermoelectric power generation, the figure of merit ZT is determined by the thermal conductivity, electrical conductivity and Seebeck coefficient of the material, and various methods for reducing the thermal conductivity have been studied previously. In the present study, improvement of the equivalent ZT value by using forced convection of the fuel gas mixture along the thermoelectric legs is investigated with a series of analysis and the effects of various parameters are examined.