• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.18 no.10
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• pp.777-784
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• 2017

Energy harvesting through a thermoelectric module normally makes use of the temperature gradient in the system's operational environment. Therefore, it is difficult to obtain the desired output power when the system is subjected to an environment in which a low temperature gradient is generated across the module, because the power generation efficiency of the thermoelectric device is not optimized. The utilization of solar energy, which is a form of renewable energy abundant in nature, has mostly been limited to photovoltaic solar cells and solar thermal energy generation. However, photovoltaic power generation is capable of utilizing only a narrow wavelength band from the sunlight and, thus, the power generation efficiency might be lowered by light scattering. In the case of solar thermal energy generation, the system usually requires large-scale facilities. In this study, a simple and small size thermoelectric power generation system with a solar concentrator was designed to create a large temperature gradient for enhanced performance. A solar tracking system was used to concentrate the solar thermal energy during the experiments and a liquid circulating chiller was installed to maintain a large temperature gradient in order to avoid heat transfer to the bottom of the thermoelectric module. Then, the setup was tested through a series of experiments and the performance of the system was analyzed for the purpose of evaluating its feasibility and validity.

• Journal of Biosystems Engineering
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.54-68
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• 1985

It is desirable to collect the solar thermal energy at relatively high temperature in order to minimize the size of thermal storage system and to enlarge the scope of solar thermal energy utilization. So far the concentrating solar collector has been developed to collect solar thermal energy at relatively high temperature, but it has some difficulties in maintaining the volumetric body of solar collector for long term utilization. On the other hand, the flat-plate solar collector has been developed to collect the solar thermal energy at low temperature, and it has advantages in maintaining the system for long term utilization, since it's thickness is thin and not volumetric. In this study, to develop a solar collector that has both advantages of collecting solar thermal energy at high temperature and fixing conveniently the collector system for long term period, a cylindrical parabolic concentrating solar collector was designed, which has two rows of parabolic reflectors and thin thickness such as the flat-plate solar collector, maintaining the optical form of concentrating solar collector. The characteristics of the concentrating parabolic solar collector newly designed was analysed and the results are summarized as follows; 1. The temperature of the air enclosed in solar collector was all the same as $50^{\circ}C$ in both cases of the open and closed loop, and when the heat transfer fluid was not circulated in tubular absorber, the maximum surface temperature of the absorber was $118-120^{\circ}C$, this results suggested that the heat transfer fluid could be heated up to $118^{\circ}C$. 2. In case of longitudinal installation of the solar collector, the temperature difference of heat transfer fluid between inlet and outlet was $4^{\circ}-6^{\circ}C$ at the flow rate of $110-130{\ell}/hr$, and the collected solar energy per unit area of collector was $300-465W/m^2$. 3. The collected solar energy per unit area for 7 hours was 1960 Kcal/$m^2$ for the open loop and 220 Kcal/$m^2$ for the closed loop. Therefore it is necessary to combine the open and closed loop of solar collectors to improve the thermal efficiency of solar collector. 4. The thermal efficiency of the solar collector (C.P.C.S.C.) was proportional to the density of solar radiation, indicating the maximum thermal efficiency ${\eta}_{max}=58%$ with longitudinal installation and ${\eta}_{max}=45%$ with lateral installation. 5. The thermal efficiency of the solar collector (C.P.C.S.C.) was increased in accordance with the increase of flow rate of heat transfer fluid, presenting the flow rate of $110{\ell}/hr$ was the value of turning point of the increasing rate of the collector efficiency, therefore the flow rate of $110{\ell}/hr$ was considered as optimum value for the test of the solar collector (C.P.C.S.C.) performance when the heat transfer fluid is a liquid. 6. In both cases of longitudinal and lateral installation of the solar collector (C.P.C.S.C.), the thermal efficiency was decreased linearly with an increase in the value of the term ($T_m-T_a$)/Ic and the increasing rate of the thermal efficiency was not effected by the installation method of solar collector.