An Environmental Sensitive Approach to Reusable Waste Heat Using Combined Low-Temperature Water Heating-Thermoelectric Generation System

Recent years have witnessed a tremendous increase in emission of pollutants in the atmosphere. This has led to an increase in concentration of CO2 and leading to a global problem. The environment can be protected by using the principle of 3R. The principle of reducing waste, reusing and recycling can be extended to energy resources, since it has a reusable aspect. A thermoelectric generation system is a novel technique that can be used to protect the environment by generating DC power from waste heat with the advantage of low weight, portability and ease of utility. The conversion is not dependent mainly upon the temperature variation experienced in the hot plate and cold plate but also upon several other factors such as TEG element, working fluid flow condition, hot and cold plate material, heat transfer coefficient, etc. The present paper emphasizes the energy distribution in the vertical direction of the thermoelectric generation system in a turbulent regime which has random and chaotic nature. The experiment is conducted in both parallel and counter flows configurations in order to identify the energy distribution in the proposed system. It is very important to have information to understand the reusable aspect, especially in a chaotic flow environment. The turbulent flow affects drastically in the counter configuration in contrast to parallel flow. The experimental energy balance sheet of the thermoelectric generation system is devised, and an average value of percentage energy is used to calculate the effect of varying temperatures of the hot plates.