Construction and performance evaluation of plane cell type micro-thermophotovoltaic system at dimension limit

Abstract

Based on the reasonable analysis and calculations, miniaturization limitations and corresponding performance are presented for the plane cell type micro-thermophotovoltaic system. One energy transition cell of this system included a combustor, two filters, two PV cells and one cooling channel, the minimum dimension and geometric relations of these parts are determined by analysing the results of experiments and calculations, the whole size of the energy transition cell is 10 mm×8 mm×2.5 mm. Then performance parameters of cell at this size are calculated by the established energy transition model, detailed performance data are as follows when hydrogen/oxygen mixture flux is 1500 mL/min: electricity output is 3.51 W, total efficiency is 1.74% and power density can reach to 17.55 W/cm 3. The outstanding performance demonstrate the possibility to choose micro-thermophotovoltaic system as power sources of micro mechanical devices.