Development of a Thermal Buffering Device to Cope with Temperature Fluctuations for a Thermoelectric Power Generator

To stabilize the heat input to a thermoelectric generator (TEG) and protect it from large temperature fluctuations, a thermal buffering device (TBD) was fabricated and examined using a typical Bi-Te TEG module and a brand-new Mg 2 Si TEG module. The TBD comprises two adjoining heat storage containers, each containing different alloys, which can be optimized for the temperature range of the TEG. The combination of two alloys in series diminishes the thermal fluctuations, stabilizing the heat input to the TEG module. This is achieved by having two metallic materials with large enthalpies of fusion that can be placed between the heat source and the TEG. The combination of the two alloys can be optimized for the temperature ranges of Bi-Te, Pb-Te, or Co-Sb. For the Bi-Te TEG, 15Al-85Zn and 30Sn-70Zn alloys were used for the heat source side and the TEG side, respectively. The corresponding alloys for the Mg 2 Si TEG were 20Ni-80Al and 7Si-93Al. With the use of a TBD, the Bi-Te TEG exhibited no notable damage even in the rather high temperature range beyond ∼573 K. For the Mg 2 Si TEG, no operational damage of the Mg 2 Si TEG module was observed even with a temperature of 1020 K.