Exergoeconomic Analysis of Two-stage Thermoelectric Cooler with Genetic Algorithm

Abstract

In this paper a two stage thermoelectric cooler which has total 50 elements out of which 30 elements are on hotter side and 20 elements are on colder side, analyzed on the basis of the principles of thermoeconomics. Exergy destruction has been used to calculate the second law efficiency. Then the exergy has been coupled with unit cost of exergy to calculate the cost of refrigeration produced. The model has been analyzed for a particular life cycle of thermoelectric cooler (TEC) where the operating conditions change with the variation in cold side and hot side temperatures. Two cases have been considered. In first case the cold side temperature is varied with hot side temperature maintained as constant. In second case hot side temperature is varied with cold side temperature maintained as constant. The analysis shows that on the basis of thermo-economics the first case is favorable but the comparison on the basis of coefficient of performance, rate of refrigeration and second law efficiency show that the second case is favorable.