Development of a Prototype Thermophotovoltaic Power Generation System Using Super-Adiabatic Combustion in Porous Quartz Glass

Abstract

A prototype thermophotovoltaic (TPV) generation system based on super-adiabatic combustion with reciprocating flow in porous media was developed experimentally. Stacked porous quartz glass plates in the system were used as an optical filter and for heat storage. The distributions of temperature and spectral radiation indicated that both energy recirculation and spectral control were realized with the quartz glass plates. In addition, electric power was obtained by introducing the spectral controlled radiation into GaSb cells. The measured output power was in close agreement with that estimated using a parallel ray-tracing model. Application of a one-dimensional configuration to this system is expected to result in a total fuel to electricity conversion efficiency that would reach 10%. Consequently, a spherical super-adiabatic combustion TPV system is proposed as an idealized one-dimensional system to achieve this.

Keywords

• thermophotovoltaic generation of electricity
• thermal radiation
• spectral control
• superadiabatic system
• porous quartz glass