Thermoelectric generator for uncertain times

Frenzy with performance is not there. I wonder what the efficiency would be if instead of the burner, we put a tourist gas lamp (one with Auer's T-shirt) on the gas canister and illuminate the spherically located photovoltaic cells around it.

The goal should be to reach 3 W. With this power, the inverter will be 5 V and 500 mA, so we have a standard USB power supply. Almost all USB devices should work with this voltage and current.

Not bad. When making a "chimney" covered with four or five such modules with heat sinks, it should be possible to get these few W passively.

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Now for some details about the TEC1-12706
It is a normal coincidence that I have such an element in use.

Power supply 12 V - current 2.8 A, power 33 W.
The power given by the manufacturer / seller is 60 W, which is available with a power supply of about 15 V. How is the efficiency of such an element as a cooling one, another story.

When it comes to cooling, these modules are great. I got -40 degrees, as I remember correctly, and thanks to this one plate I was able to successfully create a small Wilson chamber for observing the passage of alpha and other particles in alcohol vapors.

As for me, a big round of applause for the author for building a working device from practically only waste. We should also thank you for reminding all of us that there is a possibility of getting a small amount of power from a candle or other heat source.

If the proverbial W hour came, more than one could be cut for even a little bit of electricity. Obtaining the power of 1-2 W from the candle itself is in practice sufficient for the operation of a battery-operated radio (the power consumption of which is in the range of fractions of a watt), charging the phone, charging the powerbank or illuminating the ordinary white 1 W diode, which will give more light than the candle itself.

I would go further with it, because the device can actually save the proverbial butt. Mainly due to the fact that thermal energy can be obtained from burning various things, not necessarily candles or cartridges for camping stoves. Nothing prevents you from starting a fire in a metal cuboid and placing several cells on the walls, thereby increasing the power.

@alikatek It's during a nuclear winter, right? Or maybe a manual generator to charge the battery instead of being cut?

But fire does not just make of itself. It is made of one or another fuel and oxygen. It is not known what is more valuable. If you can squeeze 500 W on a trainer (i.e. a stationary bike), then in a minute you will produce as much as such a link for over 4 hours. The question of storage - more supercapacitors than batteries.

puchalak wrote:

If you can squeeze 500 W on a trainer (i.e. a stationary bike)

Just to get that kind of performance you have to be built like this GUY although you can see that he almost spat his lungs out, although it generated only 21 Wh.

Okay, the crumbs can squeeze 125W each for a minute. It's still over an hour of smoking.

In my can save your butt I meant more that such a generator can be powered by any fuel. A candle, a burner, a lighter, kerosene, an oil lamp, paraffin cubes to light the grill, or wood fuel. The versatility of this device deserves the greatest respect. And of course, maintenance-free. You light a fire and do something else and the phone is charging or the lamp under the ceiling is on.

It is known that with a manual generator or a converted bicycle you will achieve much more power, but for this you have to invest your time and energy. After all, by turning the manual generator you will not be able to chop wood for firewood at the same time.

To charge the phone, with this power, the lamp will have to be on for about 8 hours. What kind of material do you know that will burn for so long without maintenance?

In fact, there are already such spies - the fact that more camping than home ones and the price is sick but ...
https://paker.pl/kuchenka-biolite-campstove-2

Do not overdo it, Camp Stove V2 is a very interesting item on our market, available on promotion here: Link
The price for this product is an exaggeration: Link

H3nry wrote:

The price for this product is an exaggeration: Link

The latter is also an exaggeration, and quite a lot of it.

puchalak wrote:

To charge the phone, with this power, the lamp will have to be on for about 8 hours. What kind of material do you know that will burn for so long without maintenance?

There are commercially available tealights with a burning time of 3, 5, 8 and even 10 hours. While burning, the candle has a flame that is at a relatively similar height all the time. That's why I know, because I use such candles to heat a tea pot or to create a romantic mood.
It can therefore be said that they burn practically maintenance-free for the time declared by the manufacturer. On the manufacturer's website you can see the offer:
Link

A kerosene lamp, a spirit burner or an oil lamp after flooding with fuel will also burn for a very long time, giving the flame all the time at a similar height with similar intensity. It is also a virtually maintenance-free heat source.

40 years ago, at a training ground in Russia (USSR), Russian commandos had such an attachment for a fire - a dense mesh with leads for two heat-resistant wires. Size ca '40x40 cm. It gave 6V and 0.5A ... They charged the batteries for the radio ...

There is also such a thing as a magnetohydrodynamic generator. Here, perhaps, thermal energy is immediately converted into electricity. And in a thermoelectric generator you need a temperature difference.
In the future, perhaps energy from the sun will be obtained from the optical rector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_rectenna. It is also such an alternative to photovoltaic panels.
I guess there are no better ones.
There is also such a thing as an airfoil. Here you can probably also reverse it so that it produces electricity. And even if not, the vision of aircraft engines without moving parts is interesting (such an alternative to mhd drive).

kamil3211 wrote:

magnetohydrodynamic. Here, perhaps, thermal energy is immediately converted into electricity.

Not. In such a generator, the role of the generator rotor is played by a liquid or gaseous (ionized) medium moving in a magnetic field.

Such an air conditioning that produces electricity?

@ kamil32112 Learn a little bit, instead of producing complete phantasmagories here

In the movie "On the White Trail" they use a kerosene lamp generator to power the radio. I believe they were thermocouples.

But remember that Peltier cells do not "like" too high temperatures (probably around 100 ° C) because they will desolder. Besides, as it is based on a semiconductor, it doesn't "like" temperatures above, say, 150 ° C.

Andrzej42 wrote:

But remember that Peltier cells do not "like" too high temperatures (probably around 100 ° C) because they will desolder.

Normal ones for cooling withstand over 100 ° C, but those for generators have a given warm surface temperature of up to 320 ° C, but during this time the cold side should be below 180 ° C.
https://customthermoelectric.com/media/wysiwy...sheets/2411G-7L31-15CX1_20140508_spec_sht.pdf
They are probably soldered with something other than tin - maybe silver - they are much more expensive than those "normal", common, that is intended for cooling.
These semiconductors are not germanium or silicon and last much longer.

Question for experts: 1 peltier produces a maximum of 6 A and 4.8 V, how much electricity will it produce if I connect 10 of these? I would have 24 hours of energy at the stove.

skyinn wrote:

how much electricity will be produced if I connect 10 of these?

How do you combine them?
As in series, it is 0.6A 48V, and in parallel, it is 6A 4.8V, assuming the same operating parameters in both cases - temperature of the hot and cold side of each cell.

Is new old idea.
Thermoelectric cell based on copper and copper oxide. So, in fact, you can build them from a few pieces of copper wire, like the man here:
http://sparkbangbuzz.com/copper-oxide-te/copper-oxide-gen3.htm
You could try to make such a generator from a few copper heat sinks and a few thin plates. This will increase the surface area of the joint and heat dissipation.
This sentence is interesting:

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Copper oxide however, also acts like a thermistor with a very high negative temperature coefficient.

I wonder if it would be possible to do such an action that copper oxide would be pressed into a thin wafer and put between two pieces of copper. Then we are sure that there will be no copper-copper contact and at the same time the thermal resistance of the joint should increase, which should increase Δt.

Movie:

A thermocouple on copper will have a fairly low efficiency. Copper has a high thermal conductivity, heat will quickly escape from the hot side to the cold side. The ratio of electrical conductivity to thermal conductivity determines the efficiency of the system. However, copper oxide Cu ₂ O can be used except that the second electrode should be of a material other than copper. It will not be a metal, but rather a semiconductor.

Staszek_Staszek wrote:

Heat will quickly escape from the hot side to the cold side

That's why I wrote about the possible pressing of copper oxide into a wafer to increase thermal resistance

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the second electrode should be of a material other than copper.

Have you read the website and seen the video? It works, made of only copper wires.

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It will not be a metal, but rather a semiconductor.

They used to build cuprite rectifiers, maybe the Peltier phenomenon is happening here too, not Seebec. But cuprite rectifiers lost their properties when heated, so probably not.

bambus94 wrote:

Have you read the website and seen the video? It works, made of only copper wires.

It works but with low efficiency. This can be calculated for a copper electrode. I do not know the thermal conductivity of copper oxide. Since it has been used to build diodes since 1924, I would probably find this data. However, the heat loss through the copper electrode disqualifies this system for practical applications anyway.

It occurred to me that cooling systems from a laptop could be used for cooling. Maybe the efficiency could be improved, and the elements are free, easily available and ... terribly unsightly.