Research Project Evaluation

Developing Thermoelectric Generator Electricity

from Waste Heat
By Titus John: TG 12
My research project was greatly inspired by the concern caused by greenhouse
gas emission in Australia. From looking through various articles, I questioned how
ironic it would be to use these harmful heat into something useful for the society.
While researching, I came across thermoelectricity, the conversion of heat to a
potential difference (voltage). I was able to correlate this to the issue Australia is
facing, and how thermoelectricity could help them resolve this issue. I was able
to prove myself by doing background research into how thermoelectricity works,
coming in contact with experts in the topic and finally designing an efficient
makeshift thermoelectric generator. My outcome was in the form of a scientific
report stating and explaining my results of the research.
The initial process of founding a question proved to be very broad. To refine what
was extremely vague and unclear, I had to go through different research
processes such as literature review and other refinement processes like lotus
diagrams. The process helped me think more deeply into concepts and find what
was challenging in the study. As I narrowed my topic down to finding a way to
stopping greenhouse gas, I came across an article by the United States
Environmental Protection Agency discussing about the worlds policy to reduce
greenhouse gas emission by using less electricity (Greenhouse Gas Emissions
2014). It was completely in contrast to what I thought when I read the scientific
report by Hongnan Fan and his team who researched on the Power Generation
from Thermoelectric Cells. Mr Fans research could be a potential renewable
energy source that Australia and the world is looking at to resolve the issue of
Global Warming (Fan. H 2010). My initial idea was to write a persuasive report on
how thermoelectricity could be used for the betterment of Australias ecosystem.
This issue raised a lot of questions within my research as I knew it could be very
biased and opinion based and will provide no evidence to back up the theories.
Hence, I understood my research project had to provide an understanding on
thermoelectrics by going through the process of designing my generator.
Beginning my initial stage of research, I had built my background understanding
through articles, online encyclopaedias and other informative research papers
written by professors of the field. I realised that thermoelectricity was at its early
stages and many different articles and sources conflicted against each other with
different viewpoints. It then became clear to me that I had to cross-reference my
articles. It was through this process that I began searching for experts relating to
the issue which led me to the faculty professor, Jeff Snyder from the California
Institute of Technology (Snyder, J n.d.). He directed me to his website that
discussed how different concepts relate to a working thermoelectric generator.
Not only was this a pivotal point to my research on gathering valuable
information, but a great start for me into understanding new concepts. This
newly gained knowledge helped me explore and gathering valuable research.

In order to get ideas on how to design my generator, I decided to find out articles
and other research done by experts in this area to conduct some qualitative
tests. Using Find it Flinders as a tool to gather reports has enabled me to
determine whether the results supported claims I gained from academic research
done by Jeff Snyder. I also accessed various seminar notes by Kefeng CAI, a
professor from University of New South Wales on the use of the most efficient
materials used in thermoelectricity (CAI, K 2012). One of the main weakness I
found between these primary sources are the different types of research they
have been working on compared to mine. It had come to my understanding that I
had to choose either Seebeck or the Peltier effect (two types of output
generation in thermoelectricity) that I had to implement on my generator. I had
to go through the process of analysing these research reports to find any
misinterpretation in the information they have provided. An example could be
the project being worked on by Hongnan Fan and his team in Victoria (Fan, H
2010). His thermoelectric component is added onto a solar dish to provide
electricity from solar heat. I had to dismiss certain information pertaining to their
build while hanging onto some valuable information on the production and
research on the thermoelectric module. This had been one of the most
consequent results I found on almost all of the primary articles. Hence, I came to
a final conclusion that Seebeck would be the better method into producing
electricity on my generator.
Having being reviewing articles and research reports, I decided to begin
designing the generator itself. This became the vital part of my research as it
was the quantitative result of my project. The building of the generator enabled
me to independently validate my key findings. As many of my sources stated,
there had to be a hot and cold side on my module to provide that temperature
difference to create electricity. I intended to use two containers with water in
them, one as a hot heat sink and the other as the colder heatsink. Hence, one
container had cold water and the other had hot water. The module was attached
with two aluminium plates that were placed between the containers to create
electricity. The process enabled me to show evidence of the theory behind
thermoelectricity through the design and building of the generator. I had chosen
to do this process as it was considered by many articles to demonstrate how
thermoelectricity works providing reliability and convergent validity to my
project. It was also easy to find ideas of different generators online and had very
clear instructions. The generator was built at home and indicated how clean and
efficient thermoelectricity can get and how this could be used by Australia to
prevent emitting harmful greenhouse gasses. Nevertheless, this is just a small
scale generator and further research indicated that efficiency and renewing
electricity could change as the size of the hot and cool side powering the module
increased. I did not have the most reliable generator due to the factors of cost
and time management. Thus, this was a major weakness in my research and
highlighted various flaws in the approach I had taken. Although, I believe that
the design has potential to be used at a larger scale.
One of the main problem that went through building the generator was to find
the most suitable module. It was indeed very difficult to draw conclusions from
my findings at the beginning as it proved that the maximum voltage produced by
modules were different. Research done by APS Physics stated how metallic alloy
had been considered by experts to be one of the most effective material built
inside thermoelectric modules (Domenicali, C 1960). So I was determined to find

a module via eBay made from metal alloy. It was also necessary to have the
same voltage maximum as the fan to be used in my generator in order to run
them. The credibility in APS physics proved to make my generator reliable and
valid with reasons to why I had certain parts chosen to build it. The parts were
easily accessible in the market and arrived quickly after ordering. For valid
results on efficiency, I used reliable modules to provide accurate results including
the multimeter that was used to record voltage. This eventually provided success
for my findings through the steps I had taken.
Thermoelectricity is a new area in science that is yet being developed. There
were many intricate ideas on ethics and possibility of endangering the
atmosphere; it then became important for me to contact experts of the field of
electrical engineering and thermoelectricity itself to get clearer explanations.
Being a narrow field of research, there were not many experts around in Adelaide
or Australia proving to be a challenge that was difficult to overcome. As
mentioned above, this is how I met Jeff Snyder. By emailing him he provided
good insight on the background understanding. Despite the challenges I faced,
the opportunities and strengths balanced the issue. I was able to prove the use
of thermoelectricity to stop greenhouse gas making my outcome very effective
to the project. It was difficult for me to manage my time properly although I had
planned out my research and hence restricted me to correlate between results. I
realised there were many factors contributing to the use of thermoelectric
generator and hence my research was not viable in fully providing the
information necessary for someone to be persuaded.
As stated in my outcome which is a research report, Thermoelectricity could
indeed be a stepping stone in reducing harmful greenhouse gas emission.
Accordingly, my findings proved how effective such generators can be, which
powered a fan through heat from a tea light candle. This proves the vast
possibility that my outcome could be valuable to researchers continuing to find a
way to stop global warming and greenhouse gas emission in the future.
~
Word Count: 1385 (Excluding Summary)
References:
Cai, K 2012, Research Progress in Thermoelectric Materials, UNSW, accessed 15
November 2014, http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/events/research-progressthermoelectric-materials
Domenicali, C 1960, Thermoelectricity and Resistivity in Metal Alloys at Low
Temperatures, APS Journal, vol. 117, no. 984, 15 February, accessed 10
November 2014, http://journals.aps.org/pr/abstract/10.1103/PhysRev.117.984
Fan, H 2010, Power Generation from Thermoelectric Cells by Using High
Concentrated Solar Dish, Pdf, accessed 18 November 2014,
http://solar.org.au/papers/10papers/10_18_FAN.H.pdf
Greenhouse Gas Emissions 2014, Climate Change, 19 March, accessed 4
November 2014, http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/
Snyder, J n.d., About Jeff Snyder, Thermoelectrics Caltech, accessed 8 November
2014, http://thermoelectrics.caltech.edu/jsnyder/