THERMOPHOTOVOLTAIC COGENERATORS FOR ADVANCED INTEGRATED APPLIANCES

THIS PROJECT'S OBJECTIVE IS TO DESIGN, DEVELOP, AND TEST A THERMOPHOTOVOLTAIC (TPV) SUBSYSTEM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING 100 W OF ELECTRICAL POWER. THIS TPV SUBSYSTEM IS BASED ON A RECENT BREAKTHROUGH IN TPV TECHNOLOGY THAT DEMONSTRATED 40 W POTENTIAL. THE BREAKTHROUGH IS BASED ON A NEW CLASS OF CERAMIC OXIDES CALLED SUPEREMITTERS, WHICH ARE SIMILAR IN STRUCTURE TO SUPERCONDUCTORS, CONTAINING A MIXTURE OF DIFFERENT OXIDES SUCH AS YTTERBIUM, YTTRIUM, ALUMINUM, AND ERBIUM. THE PLANNED TPV SUPEREMITTING SUBSYSTEM IS DESIGNEDTO INTERFACE WITH AN APPLIANCE THAT IS PART WATER HEATER ANDPART HYDRONIC SPACE HEATER. THE OBJECTIVE OF PHASE II IS TOINTEGRATE THE 100 W TPV SYSTEM INTO A PROOF-OF-CONCEPT COMBINATION APPLIANCE. PHASE I INVOLVES THE DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT, AND EVALUATION OF TWO SEPARATE APPROACHES TO YIELD 100 W. THE GOAL IS TO PRODUCE A TPV SUBSYSTEM THAT WILL COST THE APPLIANCE MANUFACTURER LESS THAN $250. THE TWO APPROACHES ARE AS FOLLOWS: (1) AN ADVANCED, PROPRIETARY SUPEREMITTER MATERIAL IS TESTED AGAINST SEVERAL PHOTOVOLTAICS INCLUDING INGAASP, INGAASI, AND CUINSE TO DETERMINE THE BEST MATCH. THE MATCHED EMITTER/COLLECTOR PAIR WILL BE OPTIMIZED BY DESIGN OF THE PHOTON COLLECTOR SYSTEM, (2) THE TEMPERATURE OF THE EXISTING SUPEREMITTING YTTERBIA-BASED FIBER MATRIX BURNER SYSTEM IS RAISED BY MEANSOF PREHEATED AIR. THIS APPROACH WILL EVALUATE THE EFFECTIVENESS AND COST OF A RECUPERATOR. THE RECUPERATOR TRANSFERS ENERGY FROM THE HOT COMBUSTION EXHAUST PRODUCTS TOTHE COMBUSTION AIR, RAISING THE EMISSIVE FIBER TEMPERATURE DRASTICALLY AND THE PHOTON OUTPUT AS WELL. THE PHASE I EFFORT INCLUDES THE BASIC EXPERIMENTS TO DETERMINE WHICH OF THESE TWO APPROACHES SHOULD BE USED TO BUILD A PROOF-OF-CONCEPT PROTOTYPE IN PHASE II.