A Review on Developments of Thermoelectric Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Systems: a Novel Potential Green Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Technology

In recent years, with the increase awareness towards environmental degradation due to the production, use and disposal of ChloroFluoro Carbons (CFCs) and Hydro Chlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) as heat carrier fluids in conventional refrigeration and air conditioning systems has become a subject of great concern and resulted in extensive research into development of novel refrigeration and space conditioning technologies. Thermoelectric cooling provides a promising alternative R&AC technology due to their distinct advantages. A brief introduction of thermoelectricity, principal of thermoelectric cooling and thermoelectric materials has been presented in this paper. The research and development work carried out by different researchers on development of novel thermoelectric R&AC system has been thoroughly reviewed in this paper. The cost-effectiveness of this technology has been also discussed in this paper. The authors are also conducting research for development of renewable energy based TER system and they have been designed and developed an experimental thermoelectric refrigeration system having a refrigeration space of 1 liter is cooling by four numbers of thermoelectric cooling module (Qmax=19W) and a heat sink fan assembly (Rth=0.50 o C/W) for each thermoelectric module used to increase heat dissipation rate. A temperature reduction of 11 o C without any heat load and 9 o C with 100 ml of water in refrigeration space with respect to 23 o C ambient temperature has been experimentally found in first 30 minutes at optimized operating conditions. The calculated COP of thermoelectric refrigeration cabinet was 0.1.