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Furukawa Developing Thermoelectric Material for Waste Heat Recovery
16 August 2008
Nikkei. Furukawa Co. is developing a skutterudite thermoelectric material for use in a thermoelectric generator (TEG) for waste heat recovery applications in vehicles.
Using this new thermoelectric conversion material, Furukawa has fashioned a module measuring 5 x 5cm x 8mm and weighing about 140 grams. When the top side is maintained at a temperature of 720 C and the bottom at 50 C, this module generates 33 watts.
For automotive applications, the firm would attach around 20 of these modules to the exhaust system. Their bottoms would be maintained at the lower temperature using some mechanism like circulating water. Around 7% of the exhaust heat could be converted to electricity, easing the load on the engine and reducing fuel consumption by around 2%, according to the company's calculations.
Furukawa hopes to have a mass production system in place within three years.
Since 2004, the US Department of Energy has been funding three teams with the goal of developing a vehicular TEG that can deliver a 10% improvement in fuel economy. (Earlier post.) The three teams are: BSST with Viseton and Marlow; General Motors with GE, Oak Ridge National Lab, University of Michigan, Michigan State University, University of South Florida, and Brookhaven National Lab; and MSU teamed with Cummins, NASA-JPL and Tellurex.
Both BMW and GM are integrating TEGs with gasoline powertrains, with BMW planning to introduce TEGS in the 2010-2014 timeframe in the Series 5.
Earlier this year, the DOE opened up a second solicitation for the use of thermoelectric material in vehicular heating and cooling applications (TE HVAC). (Earlier post.)
August 16, 2008 in Brief | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
Posted by: Treehugger | August 16, 2008 at 02:24 PM
I think the 2% fuel savings anticipated are HUGE for an introductory technology.
Lets hope for even better numbers in the near future as the technology is developed.
Posted by: John Taylor | August 16, 2008 at 02:53 PM
If you have an exhaust system running at 720 C (1328 F)under your car something is seriously wrong in the first place. But it would take 23 them and the complex cooling system just to recovery 1 single HP.
Posted by: garth | August 16, 2008 at 03:00 PM
You might be able to recover 8-9% of the waste heat from the cooling system and exhaust on a big rig with a steam turbine.
Considering at 4 mpg, a big rig tractor uses 15 gallons of diesel fuel per hour at 60 mph, there might be more than 1 million BTUs to recover every hour. With a hybrid drive, the steam turbine drives an alternator to help with propulsion energy.
Posted by: sjc | August 16, 2008 at 04:25 PM
Steam turbines would be better and cheaper. Even exhaust gas turbines similar to turbochargers could do better. Even better use a smaller engine in a hybrid car. This should be a plug-in-hybrid. Modern lead batteries are adequate and cheap enough for plug in hybrids. Hybrid cars, that need long road distances, can be fueled with methanol derived from natural gas or coal until ZEBRA batteries become cost effective. The TH!NK car company th!nks that they are now cost effective. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | August 16, 2008 at 08:06 PM
Plug FFV turbo compounded hybrid would be nice. Heat recovery might be more cost effective for larger engines, but the turbo could have an alternator to do the electro turbo compounding with the hybrid motor.
Posted by: sjc | August 16, 2008 at 10:54 PM
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Totally useless, you have to wrap the all exhaust with that stuff plus add a cooling around the all thing to save 2% fuel. I thought Furukawa had better to do than this distraction