A thermodynamic model of integrated liquid-to-liquid thermoelectric heat pump systems

Hanlong Wan, Kyle R. Gluesenkamp, Bo Shen, Zhenning Li, Viral K. Patel, Navin Kumar

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Scopus citations

Abstract

Thermoelectric (TE) heat pumps (TEHPs) are advantageous for heating and cooling in various applications because of their modularity and simple design. A TEHP system includes the TE modules with p- and n-type materials bonded to substrates, plus heat exchangers, thermal interfaces to the heat exchangers, and heat transfer fluids. Although modeling an individual TE module has been extensively studied, limited studies have reported performance at the larger system-level. Furthermore, no prior study has addressed the impact of temperature-dependent TE material properties (e.g., electric resistivity, thermal conductivity, and Seebeck coefficient) on overall heat-pump-system-level performance. This work presents a mathematical model for TEHP system performance based on Goldsmid's approach for TE material performance, “effective” TE material properties, Gnielinski's correlation for convective heat transfer, and thermal balance theory for a heat exchange network. This combined approach provides an accurate model of the liquid-to-liquid TEHP system. Three different approaches—one empirical, one based on the manufacturer's specifications, and one drawn from the literature—were then used to determine values for TE material properties. The first two methods treated properties as constants, while the last approach treated properties as surface-temperature-based functions. Finally, experimental TEHP data was used to validate the models, all with relative absolute deviations of approximately 10% when predicting heating capacity and 10%–25% when forecasting cooling capacity up to a 30 K surface temperature lift. The results demonstrated that, at the TEHP system level, the TE material properties could be treated as constants, avoiding solver iterations and reducing the performance uncertainty by up to 95%.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)338-348
Number of pages11
JournalInternational Journal of Refrigeration
Volume150
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 2023

Funding

This work was sponsored by the US Department of Energy's (DOE's) Building Technologies Office under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with UT-Battelle LLC. This research used resources at the Building Technologies Research and Integration Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility operated by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The authors would like to acknowledge Tony Bouza, Technology Manager – HVAC&R, Water Heating, and Appliance, DOE Building Technologies Office. The authors would like to acknowledge Olivia Shafer for formating and technical editing. This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan ).

FundersFunder number
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Science
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Building Technologies OfficeDE-AC05-00OR22725
UT-Battelle

    Keywords

    • Coefficient of performance
    • Heat pump
    • Seebeck coefficient
    • Thermoelectric

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