SBIR-STTR Award

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will pursue the development of a novel design architecture for recovering exhaust waste heat energy from an internal combustion engine by converting heat into electricity. As vehicles become increasingly electrified, recovering a fraction of such heat by generating significant electrical power would off-load the vehicle alternator and substantially increase fuel economy. The proposed innovation uniquely combines the latest advances in component technologies from fields in thermal management and energy conversion, resulting in a thermo-mechanical system that promises to be reliable, compact, and scalable while ?scavenging? significant power efficiently. The research objectives include the preliminary design of a full-scale system and the design, fabrication, testing, and evaluation of a fractional proof-of-concept prototype. Based upon results, the feasibility of the TEG system design will be ascertained, and its commercial viability evaluated more fully. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project is to recover a significant portion of the massive amounts of energy that is not utilized in our society but rejected in the form of waste heat from energy/power systems. Exhaust heat rejected to the environment from internal combustion engines continues to be a significant untapped source of energy, representing over 40 percent of the available energy in these engines. Most markets which utilize IC engines involve mobile or portable power such as automotive vehicles and military portable generators, requiring increasingly higher performance, efficiency, and reliability within a more compact and lightweight design ? key metrics addressed by the proposed innovation. While reducing energy consumption in these applications, the innovation also reduces emissions since less fuel is consumed, helping companies meet stricter emission standards -- most notably the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) standards which impose high financial penalties for non-compliance. Other adjacent markets include stationary power generation, solid-oxide fuel cells, and potentially aircraft propulsion systems. In addition to meeting market need, the proposed design approach contributes technically towards new or improved system design methodologies and catalyzing system-level innovation ? a particular need in the area of automotive exhaust waste heat recovery

This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project will pursue the full development of a novel system design architecture for thermoelectric generation (TEG) to recover exhaust waste heat from engines and convert it to electricity. The effort will build upon Phase I achievements, which included a successful feasibility demonstration of a fractional proof-of-concept prototype and development and validation of a computer model, thereby proving the viability of this new system technology platform. The technology enables efficient performance within a very compact and cost-effective form that also can easily scale in capacity. The Phase II effort will involve improving subsystems and designing, modeling, fabricating, and testing a full TEG system for a passenger car application. Furthermore, scalability will be explored by applying the TEG to a larger vehicle platform. the broader/commercial impact of this project lie in the fact that industry has found it very challenging to develop a TEG system design that meets market metrics of performance, reliability, compactness, and low-cost, particularly for automotive applications. The proposed TEG system architecture, which includes a novel exhaust gas heat exchanger uniquely integrated into the remaining system, shows strong potential for meeting such metrics, and thereby achieving significant reduction in vehicle fuel consumption and emissions. By penetrating the large passenger vehicle market, initial market introduction could easily range in the 100,000s and much more if the cost of the product is extremely low. Broader opportunities to recover exhaust waste heat for transportation include medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, which may also be addressed by this scalable technology. Other adjacent markets include stationary and mobile generator sets, solid-oxide fuel cells, and potentially, aircraft propulsion systems. This commercial impact would greatly support national energy independence and greenhouse gas reductions.