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Study of Thermoelectric Air Duct Cooling/Heating System for Building Energy

Efficient

Conference Paper · November 2019

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Kashif Irshad Salem Algarni

King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals King Khalid University
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Study of Thermoelectric Air Duct

Cooling/Heating System for Building
Energy Efficient
Kashif Irshad, PhD Salem A. Algarni, PhD
Associate Member ASHRAE

ABSTRACT
At present, effort of maintaining thermal comfort in buildings has become a great challenge faced by the majority of the developing
countries. As the process of air conditioning, particularly in large buildings can lead to excessive use of energy. This study describes
experimental results of an air duct system that cools down airflow by using TEMs (thermoelectric modules). This system is
designated as thermoelectric air duct system (TE-AD) which consists of three TEMs along with heat sink and fan for circulation
of air. Result shows that the TE-AD system reduces room temperature in the range of 1.3-3.9 °C and humidity in the range of
4-16%. The coefficient of performance (COP) of the system ranges from 0.45-0.76 under different operating input current i.e. 2
A, 3A up to 6 A for Abah, Saudi Arabia weather conditions. TE-AD system consumes 2322.08 to 2612.21 kWh less
energy annually as compared to the 0.5-ton-capacity air split conditioning system, carbon dioxide mitigation potential of 0.69
ton/year and a sensible heat ratio (SHR) of 0.42.

NOMENCLATURE

A/C Air condition

TEM Thermolectric Module
TEC Thermoelectric cooler
TE-AD Thermoelectric air duct
COP Coefficient of performance
SHR Sensible Heat Ratio

INTRODUCTION
In hot-dry countries, the abundance of daylight, hot and dry climate conditions have incited to use air
conditioning (A/C) system for space conditioning puropse. According to the data given by International Energy
Agency (IEA 2019) in year 2017 quoting that almost 1.6 billion of A/C frameworks are running globally in order to
provide thermal comfort to the occupant resulting in consumption of approximately 6% of the overall final energy. In
Kashif Irshad, Assistant Professor/ REIII, Center of Research Excellence in Renewable Energy (CoRE-RE) King Fahd University of Petroleum and
Minerals Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. Salem Algarni, Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department, King Khalid University, Abha,
Saudi Arabia.

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or transmission in either print or digital form is not permitted without ASHRAE's prior written permission.

this way, the space conditiong has turned into the main driver of building sector energy demand and expected to
increase by 80% in year 2030. 79% of Saudi electrical energy is consumed by buildings' sectors where almost 65% of
the total energy used for heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems (Algarni 2019). Most of the A/C
systems use refrigerant as their working fluid due to its high evaporative characteristic. This working fluid has high
Ozone Depletion Potential (ODP) and Global Warming Potential (GWP) (Finlayson-Pitts and Pitts1999), which
leakage during the manufacturing, operation, servicing and disposal at the end-of-life (EOL) which potentially harm
the environment in catastrophic way. Henceforth, the improvement of the cooling framework that has the least effect
to nature, for example, the thermoelectric cooling framework has turned into the featured issue in present years.
Thermoelectric module was discovered in the beginning of the nineteen century (Lee 2016). By providing
electrical energy to TEMs temperature gradient is generated between two surfaces. Due to this researchers try to
explore TEMs potential in airconditioning purpose as it will provide cooling without utilizing refrigerants and
mechanical equipements. For small space cooling application Gillott et al. (2010) fabricate thermoelectric air cooling
system by utilizing eight TEMs. The result shows that at input power supply of 4.8 A, cooling capacity of 220 W and
cofficient of performance of 0.46 was generated. Maneewan et al. (2010) built up a counter-stream thermoelectric air
cooling system by utilizing three TEMs for tropical climate of Thailand.The result shows that at 1 A input power
supply, the TEC framework accomplished optimum cooling capacity of 29.2 W with corresponding COP of 0.34.
Maneewan et al. (2010) investigation was further extended by Tipsaenporm et al. (2008) by incorporating an
evaporative cooler (EC) with TECs system and result obtained suggested system’s performance was enhanced by
20.9%. In the ongoing year, the capability of thermoelectric for real climatic application was more focused. He et al.
(2013) explored a TEC framework that was driven by utilizing solar energy for space volume of 0.125 m3. Further,
Irshad et al. (2015) investigate the effect of a parallel-stream thermoelectric air channel (TE-AD) framework applied
on the test room under tropical atmosphere conditions of Malaysia. With twenty-four TEMs, they found that the TE-
AD framework furnished 498.6 W cooling capacity with 0.67 COP an incentive at 6 A input power. Irshad et al.
(2017) broadened their examination by diminishing the quantity of TEMs in TE-AD framework and utilized the
photovoltaic (PV) system as the power source. They found that the TE-AD framework cooling COP was improved
to 1.15 at 6 A power input. Ibanez-Puy et al. (2017) examine a Thermoelectric Cooling-Heating Unit (TCHU) under
real climate conditions. This framework was worked with 16 TEMs and accomplished a COP between 0.80 to 0.86
when 7.2 V was provided.
All the assessed applications demonstrated that TEC framework can lessen the indoor temperature under real
climate conditions. In addition, the use of solar energy to run the TEC system can achieve the energy saving potential
by 22% as compared to the conventional electric grid system (Irshad et al. 2018). Yet, application of TECs for full
scale air conditioning purpose under real weath climatic condition has not been researched so far. In this work, the
cooling execution of a TE-AD framework for building scale application under Abha climate conditions was carried
out. Further, the indoor warm condition of the test chamber furnished with TE-AD framework was compared with a
normal test chamber. Lastly, potentials of TE-AD system in term of energy saving was calculated.

METHODOLOGY
The layout of the TE-AD system was displayed in Figure 1 and actual prototype is shown in Figure 2, which
consists of an aluminium sheet housing supported by a frame and wrapped with insulation sheet, whereby the
fabrication and installation pictures. This TE-AD system was installed on the north face of the test room as discussed
below and was shown in Figure 3.

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 © 2019 ASHRAE (www.ashrae.org). For personal use only. Additional reproduction, distribution,
or transmission in either print or digital form is not permitted without ASHRAE's prior written permission.

Figure 1 Description of thermoelectric air duct system.

Figure 2 Testing of TE-AD system. Figure 3 Test room equipped with

thermoelectric air duct system.

A perspex sheet was installed at the centre of the duct that connects to a house, which consists of a total number
of three (TEC1-12730) TEMs, whereby the specification of TEM was presented in Table 1. It was designed to
separate the air duct into two compartments where the air was cooled in one compartment and warmed in the other
by the TEMs.

Table 1. Thermoelectric Module Properties

Type Dimension N Imax Umax Qcmax Tmax RTE STE KTE
(mm) (A) (V) (W) (°C) () (V/K) (W/°C)
TEC
1-12730 62 62 4.8 127 30 15.4 266.7 68 0.27 0.051 0.5177

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A thin layer coating of thermally conductive grease was applied on both hot and cold sides of TEMs for proper
dissipation and absorption of heat into the surrounding medium. Both hot and cold sides of duct compartment were
fitted with an axial-flow fan. These fans act to enhance the performance of the TE-AD system by controlling the
velocity of the air flow to 2.5 m/s inside the cold side of the duct. Both fans were connected to a speed controller to
control the fan speed. The duct was insulated with an aluminium foil to prevent air leakage and thermal losses, which
might degrade the performance of the TE-AD system. Dimensions of the TE-AD system was chosen based on the
aspect ratio criteria, which is the ratio of the dimensions of the two adjacent sides of a rectangular duct. In accordance
with ASHRAE Standard 62.2, these dimensions were in the ratio of 4:1, which have less friction, less energy
consumption, less metal sheet, and inexpensive system.
Three TEMs were arranged in three columns. The columns were connected in parallel and TEMs in each column
were internally connected in series. For each series, the positive wires of the TEMs were connected to the negative
wires of the subsequent TEM while the positive wires at the end of each series were connected to a Bus bar (positive
bar) and the negative wires at the end were connected to another Bus bar (negative bar). The positive bar was then
connected to the positive terminal of the power supply, whereas the negative bar was attached to the negative
terminal.
In order to provide sufficient cooling to the TE-AD system, suitable TEMs were selected to provide cooling load
required by the test room. The test room peak cooling load was set as 389 W prior to installation of the air duct.
TEMs were tested by supplying different input current and it was noted that at an applied voltage of 10 V and input
current of 3 A, each TEM module generates 50 W cooling power. Thus, for a cooling load of 389 W, the number of
TEMs required was 8 units, which can provide up to 400 W of cooling power at the given configuration, which was
slightly higher than the required cooling load. As this air cooling system is used for personalize cooling and not for full
building cooling so only 3 TEMs module is used in the ducting system. The ambient air was circulated inside the test
room via the TE-AD system installed on the north side of the room window as shown in Figure 3. When the DC
power supply was turned on, a current was applied across the TEMs, which created a temperature difference between
the cold and hot sides of the module. The heat sinks attached to the hot side of the TEMs have eight fins, each 1 mm
thick, 75 mm in length and 15 mm in height. In order to improve the heat transfer between the TEMs and the heat
sinks, thermal paste was applied. The heat sinks were cooled by forced convection using an exhaust fan with power 5
W, whereby the speed was adjusted by using a speed regulator.

RESULTS

Cooling performance at different input power

The TE-AD system was tested with 3 A, 4 A, 5 A and 6 A by maintaining the same flow rate of air distribution at
the cold junction and heat dissipation at the hot junction. Behaviours of TE-AD system at 4 A, 5 A and 6 A operating
current levels are shown in Figure 4 (a), (b) and (c). As the TE-AD framework was turned on at 7 AM, the surface
temperature of TEMs start changing, thus one side becomes hot and another side becomes cold. This warmth was
then rejected out of the framework through the fans attached over the heat sink. The outcome demonstrates that the
outlet temperature of the hot intersection expanded and it depends upon the outside climatic conditions. Results
demonstrated that the temperature and humidity distinction was largest during the peak working hours, which is
between 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm when compared with the starting and last hours of operation.

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(a) Current level: 4 A (b) Current level; 5 A (c) Current level: 6 A

Figure 4 Variation of outlet temperature and humidity at different current levels.

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The temperature gradient between cold TEMs surface and inlet air reaches to 2.2ºC and humidity reaches to
8.7 % when the system was operated at 4 A. As the working current was further increased to 5 A, results
demonstrated that both temperature and relative humidity gradient increased and reaches to 3.9 ºC and 12.5%
respectively. Peltier cooling impact expressed that the present level is straightforwardly corresponding to the Peltier
cooling of TEM (Riffat and Ma 2003). Pumping capacity of thermolements of TEMs increases as the input power
supply increases (Cherkez 2012). More heat and moisture content was absorbed from the air moving over it. By
increasing input power supply to 6A and 5 V reduction in temperature and relative humidity diminishes due to reverse
heat flow effect. The joule heating effect come into the picture and reduces peltier cooling effect.

Energy saving of TEAD system

In this section, numerical calculation was done to estimate the energy saving potential and CO 2 mitigation
potential of TEAD system as compared to 0.5-ton-capacity air split conditioner. It was calculated that an aggregate of
2.02 kg/kWh of CO2 released from non-renewable energy sources, for example, coal paddy straw, and flammable gas
for a unit of power poduction during year (Shafie et al, 2013). The calculation was done by adopting Irshad et al.
(2015) methodology. Also, TEAD system is potentially saved a total of 2322.08 to 2612.21 kWh of energy annually,
by providing 24.2 to 28.1 ºC of operating range temperature. Table 2 presents the comparison of the specifications
between a 0.5-ton-capacity conventional air-conditioner with the 5 A operating current TEAD system for a 12 hours
duration of operation in the test room.

Table 2. Comparison of TEAD System with 0.5-ton-Capacity Air Split Conditioner

0.5-ton-capacity
Thermoelectric Air
Description conventional air-
Conditioning system
conditioner
Refrigeration Cooling capacity, W 1300-1800 179.68-204.23
Electrical consumption, 0.6 – 0.8 0.5
kWh
Coefficient of performance 1.5 – 2.5 0.45 – 0.76
Range of operating 18.0 - 40.0 24.2 – 28.1
temperature, ºC
Sensible heat ratio 0.67 0.42
Weight, kg 6 (indoor), 8(outdoor) 4
Equipment cost, SAR 500 – 700 2210
Carbon mitigation, ton/year 0 0.69
Energy saving potential, kWh/year 0 2322.08– 2612.21

CONCLUSIONS
This Paper has investigated a novel TE-AD system for building cooling applications in the Abha climate.
Performance of the TE-AD system was further accessed by different input power supply to system. System
performance was analysed by evaluating parameters such as indoor temperature and COP. Result shows that the TE-
AD system reduces room temperature in the range of 1.3-3.9 °C and humidity in the range of 4-16%. The coefficient
of performance (COP) of the system ranges from 0.45-0.76 under different operating input current i.e. 2 A, 3A up to
6 A for Abah, Saudi Arabia weather conditions. TE-AD system consumes 2322.08 to 2612.21 kWh less energy
annually as compared to the 1-ton-capacity air split conditioning system, carbon dioxide mitigation potential of 0.69
ton/year and a sensible heat ratio (SHR) of 0.42. This study presents an effective technology which provides feasible

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solution for high energy consumption, CO2 emission and environmental degradation for Saudi Arabia region.

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