Abstract Small-scale power sources should be developed with the rapid development of portable electronic equipments. This study presents a mesoscale combustor-powered thermoelectric generator (MCP-TEG). The MCP-TEG generates an electric power of 1.88 W with an overall efficiency of 1.74% at a substantial low hot-end temperature of 95 °C. The relationship among overall, combustion, heat collection and thermoelectric (TE) efficiencies was firstly established in this work. Detailed analysis reveals that the gap between the overall and TE efficiencies is mainly determined by combustion and heat collection efficiencies, and heat collection efficiency is closely related to the residence time of flue gases and preheating design of reactants. The obtained heat collection efficiency is larger than 77.4%, which augments the ratio of overall efficiency to TE efficiency reaching 75.3%, indicating that the present MCP-TEG is well designed. The state of the art of MCP-TEGs is partially revealed, indicating that the ratio of overall efficiency to TE efficiency is an effective metrics to evaluate the performance of various MCP-TEGs.

中文翻译：

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中尺度燃烧室热电发电机的实验研究

摘要 随着便携式电子设备的快速发展，小型电源也应得到发展。本研究介绍了一种中尺度燃烧器驱动的热电发电机 (MCP-TEG)。MCP-TEG 在 95 °C 的低热端温度下产生 1.88 W 的电功率，总效率为 1.74%。在这项工作中，首先建立了整体、燃烧、集热和热电 (TE) 效率之间的关系。详细分析表明，整体效率与TE效率的差距主要由燃烧和集热效率决定，集热效率与烟气停留时间和反应物预热设计密切相关。获得的集热效率大于77.4%，这使整体效率与 TE 效率的比率达到 75.3%，表明目前的 MCP-TEG 设计良好。MCP-TEG 的最新技术得到部分展示，表明整体效率与 TE 效率的比率是评估各种 MCP-TEG 性能的有效指标。