thermo electric powered car
THERMOELECTRIC POWERED CAR
1. AIM OF THE PROJECT
This concept behind the project is thermoelectric generation that has been known from sometime, but the practical implementation of this concept is quite difficult. The idea behind this project is to make a Car that is powered by thermoelectric source, i.e. to build a car that moves with temperature difference. This concept has not been explored earlier but a lot of research can be done in this regard. We will be presenting a practically running model of a car driven by a simple heat source with the help of thermoelectric generator.
2. CONCEPT
The world wastes a lot of heat. Between half and two-thirds of the fuel we burn to create energy is dissipated as heat into the atmosphere. While it has been long known that waste heat can be converted into energy, the low efficiency of early thermoelectric generation systems was such that it limited the process’s usefulness. TEGs can take waste heat from energy generation or industrial processes and convert it into electricity. TEGs can provide electricity to a load directly when a constant heat source is available, or they can be used in combination with batteries if the heat source is not constant. A typical TEG is made of bismuth-telluride semiconductors sandwiched between two metallized ceramic plates.
Because TEGs eliminate the need for wires and batteries, their primary applications have been in remote places where the use (and replacement) of batteries is impractical or impossible, such as in offshore engineering operations, lighthouses, oil pipelines and remote telemetry and data collection in satellites and spacecraft. (NASA’s Curiosity rover uses radioisotope thermoelectric generators that produce power by converting the heat generated by the decay of plutonium-238 fuel into electricity.) They have a number of small but increasingly important applications in manufacturing, data centers, the automotive industry and in military applications.
Our Idea is to
1. AIM OF THE PROJECT
This concept behind the project is thermoelectric generation that has been known from sometime, but the practical implementation of this concept is quite difficult. The idea behind this project is to make a Car that is powered by thermoelectric source, i.e. to build a car that moves with temperature difference. This concept has not been explored earlier but a lot of research can be done in this regard. We will be presenting a practically running model of a car driven by a simple heat source with the help of thermoelectric generator.
2. CONCEPT
The world wastes a lot of heat. Between half and two-thirds of the fuel we burn to create energy is dissipated as heat into the atmosphere. While it has been long known that waste heat can be converted into energy, the low efficiency of early thermoelectric generation systems was such that it limited the process’s usefulness. TEGs can take waste heat from energy generation or industrial processes and convert it into electricity. TEGs can provide electricity to a load directly when a constant heat source is available, or they can be used in combination with batteries if the heat source is not constant. A typical TEG is made of bismuth-telluride semiconductors sandwiched between two metallized ceramic plates.
Because TEGs eliminate the need for wires and batteries, their primary applications have been in remote places where the use (and replacement) of batteries is impractical or impossible, such as in offshore engineering operations, lighthouses, oil pipelines and remote telemetry and data collection in satellites and spacecraft. (NASA’s Curiosity rover uses radioisotope thermoelectric generators that produce power by converting the heat generated by the decay of plutonium-238 fuel into electricity.) They have a number of small but increasingly important applications in manufacturing, data centers, the automotive industry and in military applications.
Our Idea is to