• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.62-69
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• 2004

Thermoelectric module is a device that can produce cooling in a direct manner using the electrical energy. The purpose of this study is to investigate the performance of thermoelectric module and cooling system equipped with the thermoelectric module. The performance of a thermoelectric module is estimated using two methods; theoretical analysis based on one-dimensional energy equations and experimental tests using heat source, heat sink and brass conduction extenders. For the thermoelectric cooling system, the temperatures in the chamber are recorded and then compared with those of lumped system analysis. The results show that the cooling capacity and COP of the thermoelectric module increases as the temperature difference between hot and cold surface decreases, and there is particular current at which cooling capacity reaches its maximum value. The experimental results for the thermoelectric cooling system are similar to those of lumped system analysis.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.13-19
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• 2009

The thermoelectric cooling system consisted of the thermoelectric module, a heat sink and a cooling fan, respectively. Also, the piezoelectric actuator was applied to improve the performance of thermoelectric cooling system and investigate the heat transfer phenomenon. The temperature distribution of test section was measured to investigate cooling characteristics of thermoelectric cooling system. The flow phenomenon of test section was visualized using visualization device. When the piezoelectric actuator was applied to the heat transfer process of thermoelectric cooling system, acoustic streaming was occurred in test section. The acoustic streaming was occurred forced convection flow, and was regularly formed the temperature distribution in test section. The results clearly show that the acoustic streaming is one of the prime effects to enhance the convection heat transfer and can enhance the performance of thermoelectric cooling system.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.162-168
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• 2007

This paper presents the effects of thermoelectric module arrangement on the cooling performance of an air conditioner using thermoelectric module. A prototype of air cooling system, employing several thermoelectric modules, has been designed and built. The evaporative cooling technique is adopted for hot side of the module. The number of thermoelectric module in the system has been varied in the range of $2{\sim}8$. The optimal operation conditions, such as input power to the thermoelectric module, fans and pump, have been determined for each arrangement of the system and the cooling performance has been compared under the optimal operation. It is found that both cooling capacity and COP are increased as the number of thermoelectric module increased. It is also found that cooling capacity can be improved by connecting the thermoelectric modules in series than in parallel, while the COP is little affected.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.214-220
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• 2002

A small air conditioner using thermoelectric module has been designed and built. Three types of cooling methods, such as air cooling, closed-loop water cooling, and evaporative cooling, for hot side of thermoelectric module have been investigated. Among three types of cooling method, the evaporative cooling method is seen to be the most effective to achieve the steady state operation of a thermoelectric air conditioner The system performance with evaporative cooling method are also studied in detail for several oprating parameters, such as input power to the thermoelectric module, water or air flow rate at the hot side, and air flow rate at the cold side. The results obtained indicate that the cooling capacity of a system is increased with an increase in the input power to the thermoelectric module while the system COP is decreased. It is also found that the optimal air flow rate as well as water flow rate at the hot side is needed for the best system performance at a liven operating condition. Both the system COP and cooling capacity are increased as the air flow rate at cold side is increased.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.224-230
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• 2014

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of supplemental cooling and heating system equipped with the 1 kW thermoelectric module. The system consist of 96 thermoelectric modules, heat sink with louver fin and water cooling jacket which is attached on the hot side of the thermoelectric module. The cooling and heating performance test of the thermoelectric system is conducted with various conditions, such as intake voltage, air inlet temperature, air flow volume, water inlet temperature and water flow rate at calorimeter chamber in consideration of environmental conditions in realistic vehicle drive. The experimental results of a thermoelectric system shows that the cooling capacity and COP is 1.03 kW, and 1.0, and heating capacity and COP is 1.53 kW, and 1.5 respectively.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.26 no.8
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• pp.375-380
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• 2014

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the cooling and heating performance of a standalone-type thermoelectric system equipped with a thermoelectric module. The system consists of a blower and two thermoelectric modules with a fin, which is soldered onto both sides of the thermoelectric module and a courtesy light. The thermoelectric system experiment is conducted with the intake voltage to find the optimum cooling and heating performance of each. The results showed that the cooling capacity and coefficient of performance (COP) were 22 W and 0.31, and the heating capacity and COP were 147 W and 1.1, respectively. In the vehicle cooling and heating performance test in a climate wind tunnel, the results showed that the standalone thermoelectric system's cooling performance was slightly better than the base system; and the heating performance of the standalone thermoelectric system was $54.1^{\circ}C$ and the COP was 1.3, compared to the base system.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.2079-2084
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• 2007

A small-scale thermoelectric cooling system was built in an effort to enhance the performance of the refrigeration system by utilizing the water-cooled jacket which was attached on the hot side of the thermoelectric module. Considered design parameters for the water-cooled jacket included the geometry of the flow passage inside the jacket and the flow rate of cooling water. The higher flow rate of cooling water in the jacket resulted in a better performance of the refrigeration system. The introduction of geometrical complexity of the cooling water flow passage to the cooling jacket also showed significant improvement on the performance of the thermoelectric refrigeration system such as the cooling capacity and the COP of the refrigeration system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2000.07a
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• pp.448-451
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• 2000

The purpose of this study is to manufacture and test a thermoelectric generator which converts unused energy from close-at-hand sources, such as garbage incineration heat and industrial exhaust, to electricity. A manufacturing process and the properties of a thermoelectric generator are discussed before simulating the thermal stress and thermal properties of a thermoelectric module located between an aluminum tube and alumina plate. We can design the thermoelectric modules having the good properties of thermoelectric generation. Resistivity of thermoelectric module for thermoelectric generation consisting of 62 cells was 0.15-0.4$\Omega$ Developed thermoelectric modules can be expected th have better properties than thermoelectric cooling modules above $70^{\circ}C$ in temperature difference between hot and cold ends.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.409-414
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• 2012

A theoretical investigation to optimize thermoelectric elements for thermoelectric coolers was performed using a new one-dimensional analytic model. Mathematical expressions for the optimum current and the optimum length of a thermoelectric element, which maximize the coefficient of performance of thermoelectric coolers, were obtained. The optimum current is expressed in terms of the cooling load for a thermoelectric element, the hot and cold side temperatures and thermoelectric properties, but not the length of a thermoelectric element. The optimum current is proportional to the cooling load and decreases as the temperature difference between the hot and cold sides decreases. It is also shown that the optimum length of a thermoelectric element decreases as the cooling load increases.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.75-85
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• 2017

Thermoelectric is a key technology for energy harvesting and solid-state cooling by direct thermal-to-electric energy conversion (or vice versa); however, the relatively low efficiency has limited thermoelectric systems to niche applications such as space power generation and small-scale or high-density cooling. To expand into larger scale power generation and cooling applications such as ATEG (automotive thermoelectric generators) and HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning), high-performance bulk thermoelectric materials and their low-cost processing are essential prerequisites. Recently, the performance of commercial thermoelectric materials including $Bi_2Te_3$-, PbTe-, skutterudite-, and half-Heusler-based compounds has been significantly improved through non-equilibrium processing technologies for defect engineering. This review summarizes material design approaches for the formation of multi-dimensional and multi-scale defect structures that can be used to manipulate both the electronic and thermal transport properties, and our recent progress in the synthesis of conventional thermoelectric materials with defect structures is described.