thermoelectric devices

Thermo electricity is one of the newer more green ways for us as humans to power our day to day lives. Before we begin to talk about the devices that are used in the process; we should get to know how thermo electricity works. A thermal power station is a power plant in which heat energy is converted to electric power. In most of the world the prime mover is steam driven. Water is heated, turns into steam and spins a steam turbine which drives an electrical generator. It seems very simple but there are some roadblocks that make it hard to achieve the constant power in the process.

The tricky part about thermoelectric generators is that as you heat the hot side, the cold side of the generator heats up too.  In order to generate power with the a thermoelectric generator you need both a heat source and a way of dissipating heat in order to maintain a temperature difference across the thermoelectric materials. This is done with no moving parts by heating water in the PowerPot.  Water holds several times more heat than aluminum per pound, so it makes a wonderful heatsink.  Also, water never gets hotter than 212 F (100 C) at a boil, effectively limiting the maximum temperature of the “cold” side of the thermoelectric generator.  This is why you always need to have something watery in the PowerPot or else it is possible to overheat the thermoelectric generator (PowerPracticle). In basic terms what it is saying, is you need to be able to keep a consistency with the heat in the chamber that the water is flowing through in order to heat up the metal pipe that lays beside the hot water pipe.

This is an image of a thermo electric generator. I am showing you this because this gives you a visual idea of what is going on. As you can see at the top of the generator, heat is applied to the device. The heat transfers to the electrons which are in the four individual chambers below the heat source. The electrons will begin to speed up and move around showing they have more energy witch allows the heat to transfer to the bottom where the heats energy is released and used for electricity. In this case the goal was to power a phone by using the generator. It seems silly to go through all this trouble to simply charge a cell phone, however this device doesn’t require any fossil fuels or nuclear energy which makes the process safe for humans, and for the environment as well. It also allows us to avoid adding to the green house gasses in the atmosphere.

This is more so what the device would look like in person. The water would boil in the power transferring the heat or steam power which would spin a turbine send the mechanical energy through the cord in order to power the phone. The process is incredibly simple.

For this device focus on the image on the right. This is another way that the heat energy can be used. As apposed to using the heat to create electricity and can be used for the process of refrigeration. Thermoelectric coolers are solid-state heat pumps that operate according to the Peltier effect: a theory that claims a heating or cooling effect occurs when electric current passes through two conductors. A voltage applied to the free ends of two dissimilar materials creates a temperature difference (LetsStayConnected). An example a one of these devices is a refrigerator.

This is the basic diagram of how the refrigerator works using the refrigeration process.

“How Do Thermoelectrics Work | Power Practical.” Power Practical. POS, n.d. Web. 04 Mar. 2016.

“Let’s Stay Connected.” How Do Thermoelectric Coolers Work? (TEC). II-VI Marlow, n.d. Web. 04 Mar. 2016.

“How Does a Refrigerator Work?” Real Simple. Real Simple, n.d. Web. 04 Mar. 2016.