High Capacity Thermoelectric Temperature Control Systems

Recent advances in TE technology enable a new class of solid state cooling, heating, and temperature control systems. The new designs utilize advanced thermodynamic cycles [Bell, LE, 2002] to improve the Coefficient of Performance (COP) by about a factor of two, so that performance levels are comparable to those of two phase compressor based systems in certain important applications. Further improvement has resulted from optimized designs that employ TE components with increased power density [Diller, RW, et. al., 2002] and reduced temperature differentials at the TE/electrode interfaces in the heat transfer path. Together, these improvements enable new system configurations that in important applications are performance competitive with two phase systems for heating and cooling capacities of up to 3,500 watts. By utilizing high power design concepts and system level design optimization [Bell, LE, 2004], TE material costs per watt of thermal power output is reduced by about a factor of four. A system design is presented that is suitable for output thermal power ranging from 50 to 5,000 watts in either heating or cooling modes. The present design is compared with a similar design using conventional TE modules in terms of size, weight, efficiency, and power density. Experimental results are presented that demonstrate good correlation between measured values and the predicted COP performance enhancements and TE material usage reductions