DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF THERMOELECTRIC GENERATOR USING PARABOLIC TROUGH COLLECTOR

Abstract

attention to the need to reduce carbon emissions and balance the energy supply and demand. Thomas Johann Seebeck discovered in 1821 that electricity can be generated by a temperature gradient that forms between two different conductors. The diffusion of charge carriers is caused by heat flow, which is the fundamental mechanism underlying the thermoelectric effect in conducting materials. In turn, the movement of charge carriers between the hot and cool areas produces a voltage differential. A thermoelectric generator (TEG), or a Seebeck generator, is a solid-state device that uses the Seebeck effect to directly convert heat flow, or temperature differential, into electrical energy. This experimentation on the design and construction of a 1kW thermoelectric generator using solar energy with a parabolic trough collector is composed of a parabolic trough collector framed from a plain mirror with an aperture area of m 0.27m2 that was used to concentrate sunlight onto a copper receiver plate with an area of 10 × 10 cm².  A power of 0.9kW was achieved by connecting 7 numbers of thermoelectric modules (TEM) generating 2.4V and 469 mA at an average temperature gradient of 60^oC.