Experimental characterization of a commercial TEG device under mimicked operating conditions

A long-standing zT = 1 barrier is still present in commercial thermoelectric generator devices (TEG) and is typically not overcome. Although it is possible to accept the current limits of such devices, the performances reported on the datasheets are frequently not obtainable when these thermoelectric devices are arranged for use in the actual operating conditions. Despite this, the current primary energy prices and ongoing climate change make their use attractive for many industrial sectors. An experimental investigation is here proposed on a single type of TEG available on the market; the temperature relationships of the electrical resistivity, Seebeck coefficient, and thermal conductivity in a thermostatic chamber were first determined. A piece of apparatus was assembled to mimic the operating conditions of the TEG device and verify its performance, but some critical issues were highlighted regarding the heat transfer and its ability to maintain an adequate contact pressure on the hot and cold sides of the module. In order to extend the recovery of waste heat to a non-excessively high temperature in the hot forging process, the maximum temperature attained on the hot side of the TEG in the performed experiments was not allowed to exceed 180 degrees C. With temperatures of around 160 degrees C on the hot side and just over 40 degrees C on the cold side, the conversion efficiency was close to 3%. Considering this conversion efficiency and the operating conditions, the estimated order of magnitude of the electricity that could be produced by recovering heat waste in the Italian hot forging sector could be in the region of some hundreds of MWh per year.