Thermoelectric power

pdb

I read an article 5-7 years ago describing a device which is placed in bottom of your boiler. This unit would supply electricity for a burner and circulating pump.

I have been unable to find this device anywhere does anyone know anything about it or am I just going crazy?

Perry_3

In theory...

Such a device could exist. However, I doubt that it does.

Several issues: First, you actually would have both a hot and cold set of junctions - and you would have to cool the cold set for the hot set to generate electricity. So - lets say you run a fan to blow room air across the cold junction.

The second issue is probably more important: The amount of power these devices generate is limited. I doubt that you would actually generate enough power to run the cooling fan for the cold junction, the burner, and the circulating pump.

I suspect what you read was someone's conceptulization of what could be done... in theory; whithout looking at the practical issues with the application.

Where this type of tecnology is most commonly used typically has a natural cold sink - and price is no object. Often this technology is tied to radioactive decay heat generation. It is used by spy agencies for removet mountain top monitoring stations, undersea "batteries" and in satilites.

An interesting twist is that if you supply power through the set of junctions - and cool the hot junction - you create a refriderator at the cold junction. Someone was producing a portable cooler that ran off of vehicle or vehicle batters for the recreational market like this. Pure elctric refrideration - except for the fan used to cool the hot junction. This was only somewhat economical becuase they used the cheapest junction materials - not the most efficient - and people do not really care about how efficient it is.

Perry