Experimental investigation on passive cooling, thermal storage and thermoelectric harvest with heat pipe-assisted PCM-embedded metal foam

•A heat-pipe assisted energy system is setup based on PCM-embedded metal foam.•Energy system combines cooling, heat storage and thermoelectric harvest.•PCM composite reduces the heat-source temperature by 33.5°C.•Higher porosity attains higher electrical power and better thermal control. With the progresses of intelligence and integration of electronic devices, the growing demand for electrical energy will inevitably give rise to the increase of exhausted heat which has potential threat to thermal safety of the devices. Confronted with above issues, this article proposes a thermal-energy management method based on heat pipe-assisted hybrid foam/paraffin phase change material (PCM) and thermoelectric power generator (TEG) for passive cooling, heat storage and energy harvest. The copper foam with high thermal conductivity and surface area is employed to enhance the heat transfer of paraffin. A heat pipe is added to transfer the heat from heat source to TEG's hot side to further regulate their temperatures. The experimental results indicate that heat-source temperature rapidly increases to 85°C by just using solitary metal foam. Comparatively, using foam/PCM composite reduces the heat-source temperature by 33.5°C at the cost of achieving only 1/10 of thermoelectrical power. The composite with higher porosity attains better thermal control during melting process and higher electrical power of 25 mW. Moreover, adding heat pipe could further reduce the heat-source temperature and regulate the thermoelectric energy output.