A thermoelectric generation system using waste heat recovery from petrochemical pipeline to power wireless sensor

Wireless monitoring s ensor gradually replaces wired equipment for data support in petrochemical industry production. This paper presented a design of a thermoelectric generator (TEG) system-based petrochemical pipeline waste heat recovery for wireless sensor. The TEG is assembled using an easy-to-modify structure that can be mechanically adjusted to different pipelines. Besides, we designed a new zero-power, micro-vibration, and easy-to-install heat sink for TEG applied in high-temperature petrochemical pipelines. The proposed TEG prototype has been fabricated and tested. The experimental results show that the system proposed in this work can supply enough energy to sustain the operation of a wireless sensor node that measures petrochemical fluid temperature and pressure for precision industrial production applications. The minimum output power is 24.7 mW at the hot side of thermoelectric generation (TEG) temperature of 100 degrees C -190 degrees C. This work presents a promising, cost-effective new approach to the conversion of waste heat into electricity for self-powered sensor networks.