Conventional and distributed combustion regime on a model thermoelectric generator (TEG) performance using a swirl burner/furnace

•Combustion characteristics for a TEG performance have been investigated.•TEG placement led to decrease in wall temperature compared to flame temperature.•Colorless distributed combustion provided a more uniform thermal field for TEGs.•CDC can enable usage of TEGs to be positioned in large systems.•18% O2 combustion conditions provided optimum case in terms of emissions and power. This study carries out computational fluid dynamics (CFD) technique and MATLAB Simulink to examine the flame characteristics in the combustion chamber and thermoelectrical generator (TEG) performance. TEG converts heat energy into electrical energy by utilizing the Seebeck effect. It is stimulated through the temperature difference between its two surfaces. Temperatures and flame characteristics in the combustion chamber were obtained using the CFD analysis program. In this study, the flame characteristics and temperature profiles through the CFD code are predicted to provide TEG input values so that the model TEG performance can be predicted. For this purpose, colorless distributed combustion technique (CDC) was used to obtain a more uniform thermal field that will be needed to more efficient operate the TEG. The developed swirl burner was modeled to obtain temperature and emission profiles under all combustion conditions studied. The temperature profiles predicted on the wall have become a input to operate the thermoelectric generator. TEG use effects on flame characteristics were numerically investigated. TEG performance results at various temperatures were also examined and explained. The power achieved for the TEG modules placed on the wall has been calculated as 170 W for two cases (21% O2 and 18% O2), and 107.5 W at 15% O2. It is concluded that changes in temperature levels are not much more from the center to the combustor wall when the thermoelectric generators are placed, which suggests that combustion performance is not affected considerably when using it. It is revealed that hybrid low emission combustion-TEG integrated systems can be used under CDC conditions.