TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of thermal contact resistances on micro-gap heat losses for microthermionic power generators
AU - Belbachir, Remi Yacine
AU - An, Zhonglie
AU - Ono, Takahito
N1 - Funding Information:
Part of this work was performed in the Micro/Nanomachining Research Education Center (MNC) and Micro System Integration Center (μSIC) of Tohoku University. This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid as well as a Scholarship from the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, also supported in part by Special Coordination Funds for Promoting Science and Technology, Formation of Innovation Center for Fusion of Advanced Technologies.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
PY - 2016/12/1
Y1 - 2016/12/1
N2 - Thermionic power generation is a safe and clean energy source that allows for converting heat into electrical energy using thermionic electrons. The miniaturization is an advantage of this technology that led to the recent development of micro-gap thermionic power generators. In this work, thermal contact resistances between the micro-gap insulators and the emitter as well as between the micro-gap insulators and the collector are measured. A thermal resistance of 48.6 K/W is obtained by downsizing the insulators until 60 × 45 μm2 of contact area with the emitter, demonstrating a high impact for decreasing the micro-gap conduction heat loss density from the emitter to the collector from 28 W/cm2 (theoretical value obtained without considering contact resistances) to 5.6 W/cm2. Downsizing the contact area between the insulators and the emitter from 320 × 300 to 60 × 45 μm2 leads to an increase of the power conversion efficiency from 9.1 × 10−5 until 1.5 × 10−3.
AB - Thermionic power generation is a safe and clean energy source that allows for converting heat into electrical energy using thermionic electrons. The miniaturization is an advantage of this technology that led to the recent development of micro-gap thermionic power generators. In this work, thermal contact resistances between the micro-gap insulators and the emitter as well as between the micro-gap insulators and the collector are measured. A thermal resistance of 48.6 K/W is obtained by downsizing the insulators until 60 × 45 μm2 of contact area with the emitter, demonstrating a high impact for decreasing the micro-gap conduction heat loss density from the emitter to the collector from 28 W/cm2 (theoretical value obtained without considering contact resistances) to 5.6 W/cm2. Downsizing the contact area between the insulators and the emitter from 320 × 300 to 60 × 45 μm2 leads to an increase of the power conversion efficiency from 9.1 × 10−5 until 1.5 × 10−3.
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U2 - 10.1007/s00542-015-2591-7
DO - 10.1007/s00542-015-2591-7
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84931424294
VL - 22
SP - 2811
EP - 2820
JO - Microsystem Technologies
JF - Microsystem Technologies
SN - 0946-7076
IS - 12
ER -