# Thermoelectric power generation



## boyaka (Oct 10, 2009)

i found this cell that if one side is cool and the other is hot that will produce electricity 
i was thinking if you could plaster this cells one a electric motors case with heat sinks on the back of them to grab some extra electricity other wise lost
not free energy just recycled
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhynSkFlJOs&feature=related how it work
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rc0cRTxb0Q&feature=related  it at work

don't know how much it would help just thought was a cool idea and wanted to share it


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## TheConverted (Jun 20, 2009)

Im sure thats just a thermocouple, exchange of heat between 2 different metals causes current to flow. 

Here is another idea almost in production;

http://www.cfcl.com.au/products/


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## IamIan (Mar 29, 2009)

It is a nice idea... just remember very few thermo-electric devices are able to convert more than ~5% of the heat into electrical power ... some are as low as ~1% ... so you still would need a plan to deal with the remaining 95% or so of the heat produced.

A nice idea for efficiency boosting.

Instead of putting them on the Motor itself... A better approach might be to setup a cooling system for all ( or as many as you can ) the parts of the car that will be producing waste heat ... The motor controller ... if the batteries need cooling ... then have some type of centrally located Thermo-Electric ( TE ) radiator / heat exchanger system to cool all those devices and recover some of the waste heat from all of them.

Possible Vehicle efficiency benefit from a TE efficiency of ~5%
Electric Motor Efficiency --- Controller Efficiency ---- Vehicle Efficiency benefit:
80% -------------------- 80% ------------------------ ~1.8%
80% --------------------- 85% ------------------------ ~1.6%
85% --------------------- 85% ------------------------ ~1.4%
85% --------------------- 90% ------------------------ ~1.2%
90% --------------------- 90% ------------------------ ~1.0%
90% --------------------- 95% ------------------------ ~0.8%
95% --------------------- 95% ------------------------ ~0.6%

So if we are generous and assume a very well designed and built system ... somewhere between 1% and 2% increase in Range ....

1% to 2% doesn't allow much room for the cost of the system in $ , space , and weight .... and still have any significant benefit left.

So it is a nice idea... but to make it work in a way that has more pros than cons... that would be pretty hard.


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## boyaka (Oct 10, 2009)

thank you didn't know what the efficiency on them 
just thought was a neat idea worth looking at


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## IamIan (Mar 29, 2009)

boyaka said:


> thank you didn't know what the efficiency on them
> just thought was a neat idea worth looking at


It is a nice idea.

And on other more wasteful devices there is more waste heat energy to harvest.

A ~30% efficient ICE wastes ~70% of the chemical energy of the fuel.

A TE waste heat recovery device used there in conjunction with a HEV system to make use of the recovered waste energy... would yield larger returns... up to 3 or 4% of the chemical energy of the fuel ... which turns out to be up to about ~10% better total vehicle efficiency / MPG.

But even at ~10% it might not be easy to engineer it to be worth while given the additional $ cost of such a unit.

Eventually years from now I imagine as MPG numbers , HEV, and PHEVs become increasingly more common ... I expect eventually this will happen on a larger scale than just the lab experiments we have seen like the one attached bellow:


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## automd (Feb 5, 2010)

boyaka said:


> i found this cell that if one side is cool and the other is hot that will produce electricity
> i was thinking if you could plaster this cells one a electric motors case with heat sinks on the back of them to grab some extra electricity other wise lost
> not free energy just recycled
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhynSkFlJOs&feature=related how it work
> ...


I saw those links before. The idea is very interesting.


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