A new hybrid of photovoltaic-thermoelectric generator with hot mirror as spectrum splitter

Abstract

A novel configuration of photovoltaic-thermoelectric generator hybrid system (PV-TEG) device is proposed. This device integrates the system with a beam spectral splitter. This beam is called a hot mirror in which a shorter wavelength will be transmitted to PV module, while the longer one is for the TEG module. A mini USB Thereminospectrometer software is used to measure the wavelength connecting to laptop webcam. The heat radiation for the PV-TEG will be enhanced by sidewalls covered with a black painted plastic acrylic material leading to high conversion efficiency. This is because the material minimises heat losses of the light. The hybrid device uses artificial suns, namely light bulbs as an irradiation source located at the top of the system. Xenon, halogen and incandescent lights are chosen as light bulbs. These choices are based on some of the hybrid researchers. No experimental scenarios for those lamps are in laboratory scale. From the test, it has been showed that incandescent light bulb contributes the highest heat radiation of 54.76 W.nm and the lowest heat radiation is 25.65 W.nm by halogen before the hot mirror. After passing through the hot mirror, xenon light emits the highest visible light spectrum of about 479 nm, while halogen in range of 800 nm releases near-infrared, which is more needed by TEG.

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