Review on Waste Heat Energy Harvesting using TEG: Applications and Enhancements

Abstract

Alternate sources of energy are explored by researchers to reduce global warming, carbon foot print and power cost. Exponential increase in power requirements for communication and computing devices paved a way to an increased research interest in the area of energy harvesting based power generators. Devices and machines loose energy in the form heat and harvesting this wasted energy is a green and clean energy option. Thermoelectric Generators (TEGs) can convert thermal energy into electrical energy and such generators can be used to harvest energy from waste heat. This paper explores various application areas for thermal energy harvesting using TEGs in both low power and high-power scenarios. This paper also focuses on reviewing available electronic circuitry and methods used for efficient transfer of power to the load from TEGs. A proof-of-concept circuit is developed and tested without incorporating any converters. The maximum power harvested for a temperature gradient of 105 degree Celsius is 64.59mW.