Catalytic effect of microcombustion in microthermophotovoltaic system

Abstract

In this work, we present experimental results in a platinum microcombustor. The experimental results show that owing to the catalytic effect of platinum, both the temperatures along the wall and on the exit plane of the platinum microcombustor are much higher than that of the stainless steel combustor under the same testing conditions. The increase of temperature near the wall is more obvious than that near the center region. The results suggest that the catalytic reaction overwhelms the gas-phase combustion. The higher surface area to volume ratio in a microcombustor makes area-limited catalytic combustion even more attractive. Strong effect of flow rate (Re number) on catalytic combustion is also identified. The experiment was further extended to a prototype micro-TPV system. At a mass flow rate of hydrogen 4.2 × 10-3 kg/h and H 2/air ratio of 0.9, the system is able to deliver electrical power output 0.785 W. The measured open-circuit voltage and short-circuit current are 2.32 V and 0.445 amps, respectively. Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.