Abstract
This study presents an experimental investigation into the operational performance of a thermoelectric (TE) freezer system. A freezer unit is composed of two-stage thermoelectric modules, an aluminum plate fin heat exchanger sink with fans positioned either on top or directing airflow through the center, and a cooling block incorporating circulating icy water for heat dissipation. Three distinct configurations, featuring varying numbers of freezer units and fan arrangements, underwent testing using a 300-liter freezer prototype under typical room conditions, specifically at 21 °C. The findings illustrate that the minimum temperature inside the freezer cabinet can achieve −16.0 °C across all configurations. Moreover, the cooling capacity can reach up to 74.7 W, with the thermoelectric coefficient of performance (COP) achieving a maximum of 0.45, while the system COP ranges from 0.23 to 0.28. The minimum TE power consumption and TE system power consumption are recorded at 138.8 W and 174.4 W, respectively, suggesting feasibility for practical residential freezer applications. This investigation sets the stage for the development of TE freezers integrated with ice thermal storage applications.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 100676 |
| Journal | Energy Conversion and Management: X |
| Volume | 23 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2024 |
Funding
Funding was provided by the US Department of Energy's Building Technologies Office. Charles Pierce, and Tim Dyer provided support for the experimental infrastructure. 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). Funding was provided by the US Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office . Charles Pierce, and Tim Dyer provided support for the experimental infrastructure.
Keywords
- Cooling capacity
- Power consumption
- System COP
- Thermoelectric COP
- Thermoelectric freezer