By R Naresh

MED,GITAM SoT
GITAM UNIVERSITY
Hyderabad campus
 Thermo electric power generation
 Thermo ionic power generation
 Magneto hydro dynamic systems
The pioneer in thermoelectric was a German scientist
Thomas Johann Seebeck (1770-1831)
Thermoelectricity refers to a class of phenomena in
which a temperature difference creates an electric
potential or an electric potential creates a
temperature difference.
Thermoelectric power generator is a device that
converts the heat energy into electrical energy
based on the principles of Seebeck effect
Later, In 1834, French scientist, Peltier and in 1851,
Thomson (later Lord Kelvin) described the thermal
effects on conductors
 In the purer metallic conductors outer electrons, less
connected to others, can move freely around all the
material, as if they do not belong to any atom. These
electrons transmit energy one to another through
temperature variation, and this energy intensity varies
depending on the nature of the material.
 If two distinct materials are placed in contact, free
electrons will be transferred from the more “loaded”
material to the other, so they equate themselves, such
transference creates a potential difference, called
contact potential, since the result will be a pole
negatively charged by the received electrons and
another positively charged by the loss of electrons.
When the junctions of two different metals are maintained
at different temperature, the emf is produced in the
circuit. This is known as Seebeck effect.

The material A is maintained at T+∆T

temperature
The material B is maintained at
temperature ‘T’.
Since the junctions are maintained at
different temperature, the emf ‘V’
flows across the circuit.
• The electric potential produced by a
temperature difference is known as the
Seebeck effect and the proportionality
constant is called the Seebeck
coefficient.
• If the free charges are positive (the material is
p-type), positive charge will build up on the
cold which will have a positive potential.
• Similarly, negative free charges (n-type
material) will produce a negative potential at
the cold end.
Whenever current passes
through the circuit of two
dissimilar conductors,
depending on the current
direction, either heat is
absorbed or released at the
junction of the two
conductors. This is known as
Peltier effect.
 Thomson effect
 Heat is absorbed or produced when
current flows in material with a certain
temperature gradient. The heat is
proportional to both the electric current
and the temperature gradient. This is
known as Thomson effect.
 Irreversible conversion of electrical
energy into heat when a current I flows
through a ressistance R.

Qj=I2R
 Thermoelectric power generation (TEG) devices
typically use special semiconductor materials,
which are optimized for the Seebeck effect.
 The simplest thermoelectric power generator
consists of a thermocouple, comprising a p-type
and n-type material connected electrically in
series and thermally in parallel.
 Heat is applied into one side of the couple and
rejected from the opposite side.
 An electrical current is produced, proportional to
the temperature gradient between the hot and cold
junctions.
 Therefore, for any TEPG, there are four basic component required
such as
• Heat source (fuel)
• P and N type semiconductor stack (TE module)
• Heat sink (cold side)
• Electrical load (output voltage)
• As the heat moves from hot side to cold side, the
charge carrier moves in the semiconductor
materials and hence the potential deference
is created.
• The electrons are the charge carriers in the case of N-
type semiconductor and Hole are in P-type
semiconductors.
• In a stack, number of P-type and N-type
semiconductors is connected.
• A single PN connection can produce a Seebeck
voltage of 40 mV.
• The heat source such as natural gas or propane are
used for remote power generation
 Power P= I2RL V=IR 2
  s12 T 
I= V/R = P    RL
 R  RL 

  s12 2 T 2 
 P max = (when R=RL) = P   
 4R 
 
Figure of merit
  s12 2 
Z= 
 R 
 
 Energy provided to the load
Efficiency of the generator = Heat energy absorbed at the hot junction

w I 2Rl (1   2 )T

  I
qh (1 2 )ITh  KT  0.5I 2R R  Rl
Rl
m where: w is the power
R delivered to the
 Max. Ideal efficiency external load and qH is
the positive heat flow
(Th  Tc ) from source to sink
Tm 
 Th Tc  1 ZTm 1  2
max    (kA)
K
 Th  1 ZTm Tc / Th  l
(1   2 ) 2 ( l )
Z R
KR A
(1   2 ) 2
Z k
[(k1 /  1 )1/ 2  (k 2 /  2 )1/ 2 ]2 KR  k 

 Figure of merit
  Diagram shows
 The charge buildup at cold side
 A high electrical conductivity is necessary to minimize
Joule heating and low thermal conductivity helps to
retain heat at the junctions and maintain a large
temperature gradient. A large Seebeck coefficient is
advicable.These three properties were later put
together and it is called figure-of-merit (Z).
• The good thermoelectric materials should possess

1. Large Seebeck coefficients

2. High electrical conductivity
3. Low thermal conductivity

• The example for thermoelectric materials

• BismuthTelluride (Bi2Te3),
• Lead Telluride (PbTe),
• SiliconGermanium (SiGe),
• Bismuth-Antimony (Bi-Sb)
 ZT is maximized when the product RK is minimized,
where R is the total couple resistance and K is the
couple thermal conductance. This is accomplished
 when:

 and the figure of merit for the couple is given by

 The efficiency (n) (power generation mode) of the
thermoelectric couple is given by the power input to
the load (W) over the net heat flow rate (QH), where QH
is positive for heat flow from the source to the sink and
is given below:

 Proportional to (1+ZT)1/2
 N-type
Cold Hot side
side

Heat flow

Electron flow
• Easy maintenance: They works electrically without any
moving parts so they are virtually maintenance free.
• Environment friendly: Thermoelectric generators produce no
pollution. Therefore they are eco friendly generators.
• Compact and less weight: The overall thermoelectric
cooling system is much smaller and lighter than a comparable
mechanical system.
• High Reliability:Thermoelectric modules exhibit very high
reliability due to their solid-state construction
• No noise: They can be used in any orientation and in zero gravity
environments. Thus they are popular in many aerospace
applications.

• Convenient Power Supply: They operate directly from a DC

power source.
Water/Beer Cooler Cryogenic IR Night Vision

Si bench

TE

Electronic Cooling

Laser/OE Cooling

Cooled 31
Car Seat
 The standard material we work with is BiTe. The best
efficiency that can be achieved with this material is
approximately 6%.
 But once the material is constructed into a module,
efficiency drops to 3 to 4% because of thermal and
electrical impedance. No other semiconductor material can
perform as well as BiTe as far as efficiency is concerned.
Other material such as PbTe are used but are far less
efficient, and must be used at significantly higher
temperatures (450°C- 600°C) hot side and are not
commercially available!
 Thermoelectric Seebeck effect modules are designed for
very high power densities, on the order of 50 times greater
than Solar PV!
 Bismuth telluride is the best bulk TE material with ZT=1
 Trends in TE devices:
• Superlattices and nanowires: Increase in S, reduction in k
• Nonequilibrium effects: decoupling of electron and phonon
transport
• Bulk nanomaterial synthesis
 Trends in TE systems
• Microrefrigeration based on thin film technologies
• Automobile refrigeration
• TE combined with fluidics for better heat exchangers
 To match a refrigerator, an effective ZT= 4 is needed
 To efficiently recover waste heat from car, ZT = 2 is
needed
 Thermionic emission is the basis for the
working of this system.
 In 1873, the Britain professor Frederic Guthrie
invented the Thermionic phenomenon.
 In 1883, Thomas A. Edison observed that the
electrons are emitted from a metal surface
when it was heated. This effect is called Edison
effect.
 Later in 1904, a British physicist John Ambrose
Fleming developed two-element vacuum tube
known as diode.
 Thermionic power generator (TPG) is a static
device that converts heat energy into electrical
energy by boiling electrons from a hot emitter
surface (= 1800K) across a small inter electrode
gap (< 0.5 mm) to a cooler collector surface (=
1000K)

The idea of electrons leaving the surface
• A thermionic energy converter (or) thermionic power
generator is a device consisting of two electrodes placed
near one another in a vacuum.
• One electrode is normally called the cathode, or emitter,
and the other is called the anode, or plate.
• Ordinarily, electrons in the cathode are prevented from
escaping from the surface by a potential-energy barrier.
• When an electron starts to move away from the surface,
it induces a corresponding positive charge in the
material, which tends to pull it back into the surface.
• To escape, the electron must somehow acquire enough
energy to overcome this energy barrier.
• At ordinary temperatures, almost none of the electrons
can acquire enough energy to escape.
• However, when the cathode is very hot, the electron
energies are greatly increased by thermal motion.
• At sufficiently high temperatures, a considerable
number of electrons are able to escape.
• The liberation of electrons from a hot surface is
called thermionic emission
 For the electrons to travel, the unit is at vacuum. This
limit the size of the generator.

 Electron emission is inhibited by space charge, small

quantity of Cesium metal is introduced into the
evacuated vessel

 Molybdenum, tantalum, tungsten impregnated barium

oxide.Uranium carbide, zirconium carbide.

 Prototype combustion-heated thermionic systems for

domestic heat and electric power cogeneration
 Advantages

• Higher efficiency and high power density

• Compact to use
 Disadvantages

• There is a possibility of vaporization of

emitter surface
• Thermal breaking is possible during
operation
• The sealing is often gets failure
 An MHD generator is a device for
converting heat energy of a fuel directly
into electrical energy without
conventional electric generator.

 In advanced countries MHD generators are widely used but in

developing countries like INDIA, it is still under construction, this
construction work in in progress at TRICHI in TAMIL NADU, under
the joint efforts of BARC (Bhabha atomic research center),
Associated cement corporation (ACC) and Russian technologists.
Magneto hydrodynamics (MHD)
(magneto fluid dynamics or hydro
magnetics) is the academic
discipline which studies the dynamics of
electrically conducting fluids.
Examples of such fluids include plasmas,
liquid metals, and salt water. The
word magneto hydro dynamics (MHD) is
derived from magneto-
meaning magnetic field, and hydro-
meaning liquid, and -dynamics meaning
movement. The field of MHD was initiated
by Hannes Alfvén , for which he received
the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1970
Hannes Alfvén
 This effect is a result of FARADAYS LAWS OF ELECTRO
MAGNETIC INDUCTION. (i.e. when the conductor moves through a
magnetic field, it generates an electric field perpendicular to the
magnetic field & direction of conductor).
The induced EMF is given by
Eind = u x B
where u = velocity of the conductor.
B = magnetic field intensity.
The induced current is given by,
Iind = C x Eind
where C = electric conductivity
The retarding force on the conductor is the Lorentz force given by
Find = Iind X B
 The conducting fluid flow is forced between the
plates with a kinetic energy and pressure differential
sufficient to over come the magnetic induction force
Find.
 An ionized gas is employed as the conducting fluid.
 Ionization is produced either by thermal means I.e.
by an elevated temperature or by seeding with
substance like cesium or potassium vapors which
ionizes at relatively low temperatures.
 The atoms of seed element split off electrons. The
presence of the negatively charged electrons makes
the gas an electrical conductor.
90% conductivity can be
achieved with a fairly low
degree of ionization of only
about 1%.
 Open cycle MHD

 Closedcycle MHD
Seeded Inert gas system.
Liquid metal system

 Temperature of CC MHD plants is very

less compared to OC MHD plants. It’s
about 1400oC.
 The fuel used maybe oil through an oil tank or
gasified coal through a coal gasification plant
 The fuel (coal, oil or natural gas) is burnt in the
combustor or combustion chamber.
 The hot gases from combustor is then seeded with a
small amount of ionized alkali metal (cesium or
potassium) to increase the electrical conductivity of
the gas.
 The seed material, generally potassium carbonate is
injected into the combustion chamber, the potassium
is then ionized by the hot combustion gases at
temperature of roughly 2300’ c to 2700’c.
 To attain such high temperatures, the compressed air is used
to burn the coal in the combustion chamber, must be
adequate to at least 11000c.
 A lower preheat temperature would be adequate if the air is
enriched in oxygen. An alternative is used to compress
oxygen alone for combustion of fuel, little or no preheating
is then required. The additional cost of oxygen might be
balanced by saving on the preheater.
 The hot pressurized working fluid leaving the combustor
flows through a convergent divergent nozzle. In passing
through the nozzle, the random motion energy of the
molecules in the hot gas is largely converted into directed,
mass of energy. Thus , the gas emerges from the nozzle and
enters the MHD generator unit at a high velocity.
 In a closed cycle system the carrier gas operates in the form
of Brayton cycle. In a closed cycle system the gas is
compressed and heat is supplied by the source, at
essentially constant pressure, the compressed gas then
expands in the MHD generator, and its pressure and
temperature fall. After leaving this generator heat is
removed from the gas by a cooler, this is the heat rejection
stage of the cycle. Finally the gas is recompressed and
returned for reheating.
 The complete system has three distinct but interlocking
loops. On the left is the external heating loop. Coal is
gasified and the gas is burnt in the combustor to provide
heat. In the primary heat exchanger, this heat is transferred
to a carrier gas argon or helium of the MHD cycle. The
combustion products after passing through the air preheater
and purifier are discharged to atmosphere.
 Because the combustion system is separate from the
working fluid, so also are the ash and flue gases.
Hence the problem of extracting the seed material
from fly ash does not arise. The flue gases are used to
preheat the incoming combustion air and then
treated for fly ash and sulfur dioxide removal, if
necessary prior to discharge through a stack to the
atmosphere.
 The loop in the center is the MHD loop. The hot argon
gas is seeded with cesium and resulting working
fluid is passed through the MHD generator at high
speed. The dc power out of MHD generator is
converted in ac by the inverter and is then fed to the
grid.
 When a liquid metal provides the electrical conductivity, it is
called a liquid metal MHD system.
 An inert gas is a convenient carrier
 The carrier gas is pressurized and heated by passage
through a heat exchanger within combustion chamber. The
hot gas is then incorporated into the liquid metal usually hot
sodium to form the working fluid. The latter then consists of
gas bubbles uniformly dispersed in an approximately equal
volume of liquid sodium.
 The working fluid is introduced into the MHD generator
through a nozzle in the usual ways. The carrier gas then
provides the required high direct velocity of the electrical
conductor.
 After passage through the generator, the liquid metal is
separated from the carrier gas. Part of the heat exchanger to
produce steam for operating a turbine generator. Finally the
carrier gas is cooled, compressed and returned to the
combustion chamber for reheating and mixing with the
recovered liquid metal. The working fluid temperature is
usually around 800’c as the boiling point of sodium even
under moderate pressure is below 900’c.
 At lower operating temp, the other MHD conversion systems
may be advantageous from the material standpoint, but the
maximum thermal efficiency is lower. A possible
compromise might be to use liquid lithium, with a boiling
point near 1300’c as the electrical conductor lithium is much
more expensive than sodium, but losses in a closed system
are less.
 It has no moving parts & the actual conductors are replaced
by ionized gas (plasma). The magnets used can be
electromagnets or superconducting magnets.
 The plasma temperature is typically over 2000 °C, the duct
containing the plasma must be constructed from non-
conducting materials capable of withstanding this high
temperature. The electrodes must of course be conducting
as well as heat resistant.
 Superconducting magnets of 4~6Tesla are used. Here
exhaust gases are again recycled & the capacities of
these plants are more than 200MW.
 Non-conducting walls of the channel must be
constructed from an exceedingly heat-resistant
substance such as yttrium oxide or zirconium dioxide
to retard oxidation
 Ionization of GAS:
 Various methods for ionizing the gas are available, all of
which depend on imparting sufficient energy to the gas. The
ionization can be produced by thermal or nuclear means.
Materials such as Potassium carbonate or Cesium are often
added in small amounts, typically about 1% of the total mass
flow to increase the ionization and improve the conductivity,
particularly combustion of gas plasma
 In MHD the thermal pollution of water is eliminated. (Clean
Energy System)
 Use of MHD plant operating in conjunction with a gas turbine
power plant might not require to reject any heat to cooling water.
 These are less complicated than the conventional generators,
having simple technology.
 There are no moving parts in generator which reduces the energy
loss.
 These plants have the potential to raise the conversion efficiency
up to 55-60%. Since conductivity of plasma is very high (can be
treated as infinity).
 It is applicable with all kind of heat source like nuclear, thermal,
thermonuclear plants etc. Extensive use of MHD can help in better
fuel utilization.
 The construction of superconducting magnets for small
MHD plants of more than 1kW electrical capacity is only on
the drawing board.
 Difficulties may arise from the exposure of metal surface to
the intense heat of the generator and form the corrosion of
metals and electrodes.
 Construction of generator is uneconomical due to its high
cost.
 Construction of Heat resistant and non conducting ducts of
generator & large superconducting magnets is difficult.
 MHD without superconducting magnets is less efficient
when compared with combined gas cycle turbine.