Study of thermoelectric cooler

• Main Author: Lee, Nicholas Jun
• Other Authors: Rusli
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2022
• Subjects: Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/163423
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Thermoelectric Coolers (TECs) are fully solid-state heat pump that uses the Peltier effect which transfers heat from one side to the other of the TEC using electric current. Comparing to conventional cooling devices, TECs have the advantages of not having any moving parts and do not involve the use of harmful chlorofluorocarbons as refrigerant. This makes it reliable without any need for maintenance as well as being safe for the environment. However, research has proven that TECs are inefficient to replace conventional cooling devices for large scale cooling due to their lower Coefficient of Performance (COP). This project aims to design and assemble a tabletop air conditioner utilizing TECs to explore the feasibility of utilizing TECs in small scale cooling for daily use. Despite the lower efficiency, it is postulated that the overall energy consumption of TECs may be less than of conventional compressor cooling, if only localized and personalized cooling is required. The TEC tabletop air conditioner prototype was set up and investigated in detail in terms of its performance and energy consumption. With water cooling adopted for both the cold and hot radiator, a variation of testing was conducted such as changing the radiator type, the output fan speed, different positioning, and humidity point. The data is used to compute and obtain the optimum point of COP by comparing the cooling power to power consumed. The final product of the TEC tabletop air conditioner can produce a temperature difference of 4 to 6°C depending on the ambient humidity. The optimum point of the product produces up to 4.5°C below ambient temperature in cooling, at a humidity of 73%. The system has a COP of 1.09 when the TEC is operated at 48.6 V and 6 A and with the output radiator fan biased at 6V.