Thermoelectric-Powered Field Kitchen Appliances

Cooking appliances in U.S. Army field kitchens are currently heated by burning JP-8 fuel using electrically powered burners. Power is supplied by a separate JP-8 fired generator that serves multiple appliances simultaneously. This is inefficient, as generators are only 20-25% efficient, and unreliable since failure of the generator results in the failure of the entire kitchen operation. This is a significant risk because field generators have typical mean time between failures of only 500 hours. It is necessary to develop a means to individually provide electrical power to burners used in field kitchen appliances. This is a prime application for cogeneration, since there is a need for both thermal and electrical energy. Since the thermal energy demand is significantly greater than the electrical demand, an ideal technology is thermoelectric power generation (TEGs). Thermoelectric generators are solid state semiconductor devices that generate electrical power when subjected to a thermal gradient. Being solid-state devices, they require no maintenance. The longevity and reliability of TEGs have been demonstrated in long term space missions where radio-isotope decay is used as the heat source. TEG-powered field kitchen appliances will operate without the need for a generator and thereby improve the reliability of field feeding operations.