Investigation of prototype thermoelectric domestic-ventilator

Applications of thermoelectrics had been enlarged from conventional single refrigeration or generation to waste heat recovery with tough energy consumption of the world. With improvement of living standard more and more domestic air-conditioners are used in Chinese families now. Percentage of power consumption of domestic air-conditioner caused by heat load of fresh air supply increased after SARS, which could be prevented efficiently with sufficient fresh air supply, broke out in China in 2003. A novel prototype thermoelectric domestic-ventilator with heat recovery of exhaust of air-conditioned room had been made in Hunan University thermoelectric lab. A thermoelectric heat exchanger and a flat-fin cross flow heat exchanger were integrated in this ventilator. This ventilator was investigated and its cooling (and heating) performance were evaluated in terms of the coefficient of performance, cooling and heating powers, and being handled temperature difference of fresh air. The coefficient of performance of this ventilator was found to be over 2.5 in the whole experiment. The optimal working parameters of this ventilator were studied in this paper. The potential improvements in performances and market prospects were also discussed in this work.