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Experimental study on the performance of solar thermoelectric generator / Raihan Abu Bakar

An increasing demand on energy over years as well as the CO2 emission of fossil fuels have led toward exploration on alternative energy sources mainly renewable energy. Solar, one of renewable energy sources, has proven to be beneficial as it is not only pollution-free, but can also be used to pr...

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Main Author: Abu Bakar, Raihan
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Solar batteries. Solar cells
Online Access:https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/60056/1/60056.pdf
https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/60056/
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spelling my.uitm.ir.600562022-05-21T01:53:54Z https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/60056/ Experimental study on the performance of solar thermoelectric generator / Raihan Abu Bakar Abu Bakar, Raihan Solar batteries. Solar cells An increasing demand on energy over years as well as the CO2 emission of fossil fuels have led toward exploration on alternative energy sources mainly renewable energy. Solar, one of renewable energy sources, has proven to be beneficial as it is not only pollution-free, but can also be used to produce electricity and thermal energy. Two main solar technologies are used to harness the solar energy namely Solar Photovoltaic (PV) and Solar Thermal system. The former converts solar energy to electricity whereas the latter produces useful thermal energy from the solar energy. Nevertheless, solar thermal collector can also be combined with a heat-to-electricity-direct-conversion technology called Thermoelectric Generator (TEG) to produce both electrical and thermal energy. The combination of these two technologies is known as Solar Thermoelectric Generator (STEG). The advantage of STEG is not only it can produce two different outputs, but also harness low grade heat such as solar energy by converting directly into electricity without the need of installing the moving parts or components. The absence of moving parts on power generation shows TEG is a maintenance-free and noise-free technology. Despite having the great advantages as mentioned earlier, STEG has also its drawbacks. Low power output has always been a major obstacle for this technology to become mature. Therefore, this research aims to evaluate STEG performance under different operating parameters as well as investigating the impact of different TEG array configuration. The impacts of operating parameters which are water flowrate and tilt angle and two TEG array configurations (TEG Series and TEG Parallel) were evaluated through an outdoor experimental work. Prior to this, a theoretical model was developed to predict and compare STEG performance with experimental result. The comparison of maximum power output resulted in a good correlation between the theoretical and the experimental data. A maximum deviation obtained is 19%. From the findings, STEG produced the highest electrical output with the highest water flowrate. With a maximum water flowrate of 33 ml/s, the average open-circuit voltage recorded is 518 mV. As for tilt angle, STEG electrical output increased from 100 mV/day to 401 mV/day when tilt angle increased from 3°to 20°. However, STEG electrical output decreased from 401 mV/day to 300 mV/day when tilt angle increased from 20° to 30°. This study shows the tilt angle plays a significant impact on the STEG performance. In term of TEG array configuration, TEG Series always produced higher power output than TEG Parallel. 2020-04 Thesis NonPeerReviewed text en https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/60056/1/60056.pdf (2020) Experimental study on the performance of solar thermoelectric generator / Raihan Abu Bakar. Masters thesis, thesis, Universiti Teknologi MARA.
institution Universiti Teknologi Mara
building Tun Abdul Razak Library
collection Institutional Repository
continent Asia
country Malaysia
content_provider Universiti Teknologi Mara
content_source UiTM Institutional Repository
url_provider http://ir.uitm.edu.my/
language English
topic Solar batteries. Solar cells
spellingShingle Solar batteries. Solar cells
Abu Bakar, Raihan
Experimental study on the performance of solar thermoelectric generator / Raihan Abu Bakar
description An increasing demand on energy over years as well as the CO2 emission of fossil fuels have led toward exploration on alternative energy sources mainly renewable energy. Solar, one of renewable energy sources, has proven to be beneficial as it is not only pollution-free, but can also be used to produce electricity and thermal energy. Two main solar technologies are used to harness the solar energy namely Solar Photovoltaic (PV) and Solar Thermal system. The former converts solar energy to electricity whereas the latter produces useful thermal energy from the solar energy. Nevertheless, solar thermal collector can also be combined with a heat-to-electricity-direct-conversion technology called Thermoelectric Generator (TEG) to produce both electrical and thermal energy. The combination of these two technologies is known as Solar Thermoelectric Generator (STEG). The advantage of STEG is not only it can produce two different outputs, but also harness low grade heat such as solar energy by converting directly into electricity without the need of installing the moving parts or components. The absence of moving parts on power generation shows TEG is a maintenance-free and noise-free technology. Despite having the great advantages as mentioned earlier, STEG has also its drawbacks. Low power output has always been a major obstacle for this technology to become mature. Therefore, this research aims to evaluate STEG performance under different operating parameters as well as investigating the impact of different TEG array configuration. The impacts of operating parameters which are water flowrate and tilt angle and two TEG array configurations (TEG Series and TEG Parallel) were evaluated through an outdoor experimental work. Prior to this, a theoretical model was developed to predict and compare STEG performance with experimental result. The comparison of maximum power output resulted in a good correlation between the theoretical and the experimental data. A maximum deviation obtained is 19%. From the findings, STEG produced the highest electrical output with the highest water flowrate. With a maximum water flowrate of 33 ml/s, the average open-circuit voltage recorded is 518 mV. As for tilt angle, STEG electrical output increased from 100 mV/day to 401 mV/day when tilt angle increased from 3°to 20°. However, STEG electrical output decreased from 401 mV/day to 300 mV/day when tilt angle increased from 20° to 30°. This study shows the tilt angle plays a significant impact on the STEG performance. In term of TEG array configuration, TEG Series always produced higher power output than TEG Parallel.
format Thesis
author Abu Bakar, Raihan
author_facet Abu Bakar, Raihan
author_sort Abu Bakar, Raihan
title Experimental study on the performance of solar thermoelectric generator / Raihan Abu Bakar
title_short Experimental study on the performance of solar thermoelectric generator / Raihan Abu Bakar
title_full Experimental study on the performance of solar thermoelectric generator / Raihan Abu Bakar
title_fullStr Experimental study on the performance of solar thermoelectric generator / Raihan Abu Bakar
title_full_unstemmed Experimental study on the performance of solar thermoelectric generator / Raihan Abu Bakar
title_sort experimental study on the performance of solar thermoelectric generator / raihan abu bakar
publishDate 2020
url https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/60056/1/60056.pdf
https://ir.uitm.edu.my/id/eprint/60056/
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score 13.211869

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