Energy and exergy analysis of thermoelectric generator module area to recover waste heat of combustion gases

The use of thermoelectric generators has a special place in recovering the waste heat of combustion gases. In the proposed model, a thermodynamic analysis with the effect of the thermoelectric generator module area on the performance characteristics of the device was studied. To develop the model, the properties of the thermoelectric generator were assumed to be temperature dependent. The convective heat transfer of water in the cold channel was also considered as variable. The effects of water flow regime and the module area were investigated both in the longitudinal direction and for five different values of the module rows on the functional characteristics of the device. The results showed that increasing the number of module rows and module area decreased the power and efficiency of energy and exergy and increased the rate of exergy destruction. The module area is also optimized in two different cases. One was done to achieve the maximum net power and the second to achieve the maximum ratio of maximum net power to the area module. The optimal area in the first and second cases were 0.4641m2 and 0.2207m2 , respectively.