Experimental investigation on two-stage thermoelectric cooling system adopted in isoelectric focusing

• A two-stage TEM adopted in isoelectric focusing (IEF) equipment is developed.
• Three different prototypes are developed to obtain optimal design.
• Aluminum plate combined with heat pipes is proposed as cooling plate of IEF.
• Fin-type heat sink with baffle can effectively dissipate heat on hot side of TEM.
• The COP of HP + baffle can reach 2.0 under conventional work condition of IEF.

Performance of temperature control is crucial to the operation of isoelectric focusing equipment (IEF). In this paper, two-stage thermoelectric cooling module (TEM) is proposed to be adopted in IEF to realize prompt and precise temperature control as well as low focusing temperature (Tf). Three different prototypes including HP + baffle, AL + baffle and HP + fin are developed to obtain optimal design. Experimental setups of these prototypes are built up to test their performance. Temperature distribution on cooling plate, COP and air temperature in bottom chamber with respect to different Tfs are adopted as performance indices to evaluate performance of these prototypes. Experimental results show that aluminum plate with heat pipes, used as cooling plate, can improve its temperature uniformity. Moreover, fin-type heat sink with baffle can effectively dissipate heat on the hot side of TEM with little impact on the other parts of IEF. The Tf of HP + baffle can be kept at 10 °C. And its COP can reach 2.0 under general working condition.