Design and Performance Analysis of Powering a Wireless Earphone by a Thermoelectric Generator

Abstract

A wireless earphone requires a portable power source to keep it operational for long time. Currently, small batteries are integrated with the earphones that are used until the stored energy is completely diminished. When a user uses an earphone, its front side temperature remains near 305 K, and the rear side experiences ambient temperature. A route can be designed to dissipate the heat from the front side to the rear side using thermoelectric materials. The deposition of an organized thermoelectric material inside an earphone can help produce some electrical energy to enhance the durability of the battery. Thermoelectric generators (TEGs) are used to convert heat into electrical energy. In this paper, we present a numerical analysis of a thermoelectric generator in conjunction with an earphone. The TEG model consists of p-type and n-type Bismuth Telluride ( ${Bi}_{2}{Te}_{3}$ ) semiconductor legs connected thermally in parallel and electrically in series. COMSOL Multiphysics 5.4 was used to simulate and predict the power output by the TEG. Three different temperature conditions ( $\Delta \text{T}\,\,=10.5$ , 7.5, and 4.5 K) were analyzed to investigate the performance of the TEG. Finally, the outputs at two additional temperature differences (( $\Delta \text{T}\,\,=3$ , and 20 K) were examined by considering situations where the earphone wearer is exposed to summer and winter environments, respectively.

Keywords

• Thermoelectric generator (TEG)
• wireless earphone
• semiconductor
• Bi₂Te₃)%22%2C%22default_operator%22%3A%22AND%22%7D%7D%7D"> bismuth telluride (<italic xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">Bi</italic>₂<italic xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">Te</italic>₃)
• COMSOL Multiphysics 5.4
• electrical energy