ICT2014 Abstracts

The use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cook stoves is widespread in households throughout Thailand. The LPG is burned by a cooker-top burner which gives off  high thermal energy some of which is lost to the environment. This lost heat can be used to drive thermoelectric (TE) modules to produce electrical power. The TE-LPG cook stove comprises four commercial TE power modules, a two purpose wind shield that is used to protect against wind flow to the cooker-top burner and serve as the hot side of the TE modules, a rectangular fin heat sink at the cold side of the TE modules and a fan. An experimental set-up was built to evaluate the conversion efficiency at various temperature ranges. The electricity produced was used to charge a single 6 V lithium-iron phosphate battery and drive a fan, as well as some auxiliary features. The results showed that a maximum power output of 12.3 W was obtained. Finally, an economic evaluation indicated that the payback period tends to be very short when compared with the cost of the same power supplied by batteries.