Performance Optimization and Exergy Analysis of Thermoelectric Heat Recovery System for Gas Turbine Power Plants

Thermoelectric (TE) waste heat recovery has attracted significant attention over the past decades, owing to its direct heat-to-electricity conversion capability and reliable operation. However, methods for application-specific, system-level TE design have not been thoroughly investigated. This work provides detailed design optimization strategies and exergy analysis for TE waste heat recovery systems. To this end, we propose the use of TE system equipped on the exhaust of a gas turbine power plant for exhaust waste heat recovery and use it as a case study. A numerical tool has been developed to solve the coupled charge and heat current equations with temperature-dependent material properties and convective heat transfer at the interfaces with the exhaust gases at the hot side and with the ambient air at the heat sink side. Our calculations show that at the optimum design with 50% fill factor and 6 mm leg thickness made of state-of-the-art Bi₂Te₃ alloys, the proposed system can reach power output of 10.5 kW for the TE system attached on a 2 m-long, 0.5 × 0.5 m²-area exhaust duct with system efficiency of 5% and material cost per power of 0.23 $/W. Our extensive exergy analysis reveals that only 1% of the exergy content of the exhaust gas is exploited in this heat recovery process and the exergy efficiency of the TE system can reach 8% with improvement potential of 85%.