Harvesting waste heat based on thermoelectric generation to drive LED car lamps

Thermoelectric generation (TEG)-based waste heat recovery technology is an example of a low-grade energy recovery application. This study proposes a waste heat recovery system that can store the recovered energy and run low-power automotive car lamps. Experimental analysis was conducted to examine the output characteristics of the TEG-based waste heat recovery system, focusing on how the structural components and operational parameters influenced these characteristics. The study also explored and optimized the working strategy of the system for driving light-emitting diode (LED) car lamps. Both the dynamic output characteristics of the system and the lighting attenuation rule of the lamps were evaluated. The results revealed that increasing the heating temperature would improve the recovered energy of the system. However, when a high-power LED chip was used for heat generation instead of an electrically controlled heating plate, a slightly larger amount of energy was collected at the expense of a slightly lower thermoelectric conversion rate. Furthermore, connecting a supercapacitor to the waste heat recovery system for energy storage increased the operational time of the lamps. The supercapacitor also served as a buffer for power and voltage fluctuations caused by variations in the heating temperature. These findings demonstrate that the waste heat recovery system not only meets the requirements of the LED car lamps but can also power other low-voltage and low-power devices.