ISSN (Print) : 2320 3765

ISSN (Online): 2278 8875

International Journal of Advanced Research in Electrical,
Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering
(An ISO 3297: 2007 Certified Organization)
Vol. 2, Issue 9, September 2013

Copyright to IJAREEIE www.ijareeie.com 4170

DESIGN OF DC-DC BOOST CONVERTER
WITH THERMOELECTRIC POWER
SOURCE
Hazli Rafis
1
, Hamidon A.H
2
, M.Y. Azdiana
3,
A.Jaafar
4
, A.A. Latiff
5
, H.H.M. Yusof
6
, W.H.M. Saad
7
Lecturer, Dept, of Industrial Electronics, FKEKK, UTeM, Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia
1,3,6
Professor, Dept, of Industrial Electronics, FKEKK, UTeM, Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia
2
Lecturer, Dept, of Computer Eng., FKEKK, UTeM, Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia
4
Lecturer, Dept, of Telecommunication Eng., FKEKK, UTeM, Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia
5
Senior Lecturer, Dept, of Computer Eng., FKEKK, UTeM, Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia
7

ABSTRACT:Design of DC-DC Boost Converter for boosting voltage from Thermoelectric Cooler (TEC) with high
temperature is demonstrated. Since TEC generates very small voltages from 0.2 V to 0.8V, the use of passive
components is not reasonable. In this design, an integrated circuit (IC) MAX 757 is introduced as DC-DC boost
converter. The MAX757 can boost input voltage down to 0.7 V and generates a higher adjustable output voltage in the
range from 2.7 V to 5.5 V. The ability of the designed circuit was verified at various temperatures and the output
voltages were analyzed. Simple in design and low in cost, the circuit can boost small voltages from TEC in a
convenient way. Thus, this designed circuit will be very promising in powering up small electronic applications such as
sensor circuits in monitoring systems.

Keywords:Thermoelectric cooler (TEC), DC-DC boost converter and temperature

I.INTRODUCTION
Currently, the use of energy harvesting technique has a vast potential in energy market. This is due to its advantages in
term of green technology. TEC is a device that converts thermal energy directly into electrical based on thermal-
electric conversion called Seebeck Effect [1]. TEC may offer many advantages such high reliability, small size, long
life, having no moving parts and being environmentally friendly compared to conventional electrical power generators.
Fig. 1 shows the structure of the TEC (TEC1-12706) used in this design as a power source generator. The TEC
structure consists of thermoelectric materials which are sandwiched by two heat exchanger plates at its two ends
respectively. One of the two exchangers has high temperature, and hence, it is called hot side of TEC. The other has
low temperature and is called cold side of TEC. The different in temperature between two exchangers causes a
continuous current flow in the conductor.

Basically, DC-DC boost converter involves the storage of electrical energy into components, such as capacitors and
inductors, and the release of energy to loads. By controlling the time for energy storage and release, the average voltage
level appear in the converter load can be controlled. The average load voltage level can thus be either higher or lower
than the voltage level of the power source. The rotation of energy storage state and energy release state is fulfilled by
switching devices. Nowadays, the most common switching device used in DC-DC converter is a transistor. The length
of time for each state within one switching period is reflected by the duty cycle of the signal fed to the gate of
switching transistor. Conventionally, DC-DC converter was designed by converting AC signal to DC signal. This has
some disadvantages such as complicated circuit, interrupted by line disturbance and exposed to lightning that is able to
encourage breakdown of power supply [2-4].In this research, DC-DC boost converter is used to step up the small
voltage from TEC to voltage level required by the target function block. The generated power from TEC is in
miliwatt(mw) and the use of transistor as a switching device is not suitable because of power consumed during the
functioning of the converter. This paper proposed a DC-DC boost converter that employs an integrated circuit

ISSN (Print) : 2320 3765
ISSN (Online): 2278 8875

International Journal of Advanced Research in Electrical,
Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering
(An ISO 3297: 2007 Certified Organization)
Vol. 2, Issue 9, September 2013

Copyright to IJAREEIE www.ijareeie.com 4171

MAX757 which is a CMOS step-up DC-DC switching regulators for small, low input voltage [5]. The integrated
circuit MAX757 offers an adjustable version that accepts an input voltage down to 0.7V and generates a higher
adjustable output voltage in the range from 2.7V to 5.5V.











Fig. 1 Thermoelectric cooler structure

II.DESCRIPTION OF DESIGNED CIRCUIT
A block diagram of the proposed thermoelectric power source is shown in Fig. 2. It uses waste heat. It consists of three
main parts: a TEC for converting thermal energy into electrical power; a small-input voltage DC-DC boost converter to
step up the generated TEC voltage V
1
and a switching Schottky diode (IN5817) for automatically selecting power
supply between the proposed TEC power source and battery. The TEC chosen in the proposed thermoelectric power
source by HB Corporation with dimensions of 40mm x 40mm x 3.8mm can be operated from -30C to 138C.

















Fig. 2 Block diagram of the designed thermoelectric power source
TEC1-12706
40mm
4
0
m
m

Cold side
Hot side
Positive
Negative
n-p semiconductors
Thermoelectric Cooler
DC-DC Boost
Converter
Switching
Battery
Load (sensor)
Waste Heat
V
1

V
2


ISSN (Print) : 2320 3765
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A DC-DC converter is designed to step up the produced voltage V
1
of the TEC using MAX757 shown in Fig. 3. This
circuit can boost voltage V
1
down to 0.7 to higher output voltage V
2
in the range from 2.7V to 5.5V. The output voltage
V
2
is set by two network resistor R
1
and R
2
. This forms a voltage divider between the output and the FB pin with V
REF
=
1.25V as shown in Fig. 3. Output voltage, V
out
can be determined by:

=

[(
2
+
1
)/
2
] (1)

Since the input bias current at FB has a maximum current of 100nA, large valuesfor R
1
and R
2
can be chosen and in this
designed circuit, R
1
= 10k and R
2
= 3.33k. The MAX757 contains on-chip circuitry for low battery detection. If the
voltageat Low Battery Input (LBI) falls below the regulators internal reference voltage(1.25V), Low Battery Output
(LBO) which is an open drain output sinks current to GND. Thelow-battery monitor's threshold is set by two resistors,
R
3
and R
4
whichforms a voltage divider between the input voltage and the LBI pin. The threshold voltageis set by R
3

and R
4
. The two resistances used in this designed circuit are 10k and 5k, respectively and the following equation is
used to determine the values:

3
=

1 (
4
) (2)

Inductor selection has also been considered in this design. The inductor should have a saturation current rating equal to
or greater than the peak switch current limit which is 1.2A. The 22H inductor has been used in this design because of
its capability in the typical MAX757 applications circuits. A Schottky diode 1N5817 is used for optimum performance
as shown in Fig. 3. The diode offers low switching noise, low forward voltage drop, high current capability, high
switching capability, high reliability and high surge capability.

5
1
3
8
6
2
4
LBI
SHDN
REF
LX
OUT
FB
LBO
R3
R4 R1
R2
10k
5k
10k
3.33k
C1
150F
C1
100F
L1
22H
D1
1N5817
MAX757
TEC produced
voltage V1
Output Voltage
V2


Fig. 3 Schematic circuit of the designed DC-DC Boost Converter




ISSN (Print) : 2320 3765
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III.EXPERIMENTAL RESULT
A. Current Voltage Characteristic and Maximum Power Tracking of TEC

The characterization of TEC module was performed by setting the temperature at 100C from thermal source which
was connected in serries with decade box resistor as shown in Fig. 4. The value of decade box resistor was varied from
10k to 1. Then, current and output voltage V
1
produced by TEC for each varied resistor values were measured. In
this experiment, a high input resistance voltmeter was used to minimize the load effect. Fig. 5 shows the relationship
between current and output voltage V
1
which is the current inversely proportional to the output voltage V
1
. The graph
also shows that the produced currents and voltages were very low. This is not sufficient to be a source voltage if the
circuit uses only passive components. However, by using this designed DC-DC Boost converter, the small voltage
produced is able to be boosted.



















Fig. 4 Experiment circuit of TEC characterization



TEC
C
D
e
c
a
d
e

B
o
x

Ampere meter
V
o
l
t
m
e
t
e
r

Heat Source


Heat
source

ISSN (Print) : 2320 3765
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International Journal of Advanced Research in Electrical,
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Fig. 5 Relationship between current and output voltage, V
1




Fig. 6 Maximum power tracking of TEC
3.1mW
180mV

ISSN (Print) : 2320 3765
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B. Measured Results of the designed DC-DC boost converter

To evaluate the performance of the designed DC-DC boost converter, a series of measurement was performed using the
circuit shown in Fig. 7. The input of DC-DC boost converter was connected to the TEC module and the output of DC-
DC boost converter was connected to a high input resistance voltmeter to measure output voltage V
2
. The TEC module
was sandwiched between thermal source surface (TEC hot side) and heat sink (TEC cold side). The heat sink was
attached on the cold side in order to maintain the low temperature and produce higher voltage. Temperature from
thermal source was varied and the produced output voltage V
1
and V
2
were recoded as shown in Fig. 8.



Fig. 7 Experiment Setup

Fig. 8 shows the relationship between both output voltages and temperature. The graph illustrates the number of
temperature in C that was set to evaluate the performance of the designed DC-DC boost converter from 5C to 100C.
Both output voltages V
1
and V
2
are proportional to the temperatures. At temperature between 5C to 40C, the input
voltage V
1
was not stepped up by the converter and equal to output voltage V
2
because V
1
was lower than 0.7V which
is minimum required input voltage for the designed DC-DC boost converter. As the temperature increased above 40C,
the output voltage V
1
also increases. The designed DC-DC boost converter was able to boost the voltage V
1
and the
output voltage V
2
increased sharply until the temperature equals to 65C. At 65C, the output voltage V
1
and V
2
were
1.4V and 5.2V, respectively. The consistent rise was seen in the output voltage V
1
when the temperature keeps
increasing until 100C but the output voltage V
2
seems to saturate in the range 5.2 to 5.4V which is the maximum
produced voltage of the designed DC-DC boost converter.


Heat sink
TEC
Thermal
source
Designed DC-
DC Boost
Converter
Output
Voltage, V
2


ISSN (Print) : 2320 3765
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International Journal of Advanced Research in Electrical,
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Fig. 8 Relations between the output voltage and temperature

IV.CONCLUSION
The Seebeck effect-based thermoelectric power source using TEC module has been presented in this paper. One great
advantage of the designed concept is that the TEC energy harvester is employed to recover waste heat in industrial
process as a renewable energy source and green technology. Experimental results confirm that the designed DC-DC
boost converter is able to produce the desired output voltage for powering other electronic circuit. A stage of DC-DC
boost converter can be connected to the designed DC-DC boost converter if higher output voltage is required.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are grateful to UniversitiTeknikal Malaysia Melaka because this work is financially supported by the
university under PJP grant scheme (No: PJP/2012/FKEKK(39A)/S01043).

REFERENCES
[1] M. Jaegle, Multiphysics Simulation of Thermoelectric Systems Modeling of Peltier- Cooling and Thermoelectric Generation, no. 6, 2008
[2] Vadirajacharya.K, AshishKharche, HarisKulakarni, VivekLandage Transformer Health Condition Monitoring Through GSM Technology
International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 3, Issue 12, December-2012.
[3] BlintNmeth, SzilviaLaboncz, Istvn Kiss Condition Monitoring of Power Transformers using DGA and Fuzzy Logic, Electrical Insulation
Conference, 2009. EIC 2009. IEEE, pp373 376, 2009.
[4] Yann-Chang Huang and Chao-Ming Huang Evolving Wavelet Networks for Power Transformer Condition Monitoring, Power Delivery, IEEE
Transactions on , Volume:17 , Issue: 2 , 2002.
[5] Jeffrey Snyder and Tristan S. Ursell, Thermoelectric Efficiency and Compatibility, Physical Review Letters, Vol. 91, No. 14, 2003.


ISSN (Print) : 2320 3765
ISSN (Online): 2278 8875

International Journal of Advanced Research in Electrical,
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(An ISO 3297: 2007 Certified Organization)
Vol. 2, Issue 9, September 2013

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BIOGRAPHY

HazliRafis received his B.Eng degree in Electronic Engineering from KolejUniversitiTeknikal Malaysia Melaka in the
year 2005, andM.Eng in Biomedical Engineering from Universiti Malaya in the year 2012. He is currently a lecturer of
Industrial Electronics Department in UniversitiTeknikal Malaysia Melaka. His area of interests includes energy
harvesting, power electronic and sensor technology.

Hamidon A H received his Bachelor of Electrical Engineering from Monash University, Australia and Masters of
Sciences (Electronics) from the University of Wales Institute of Science and Technology, Cardiff, Wales. In 1976 he
began his career as lecturer with FakultiKejuruteraanElektrik UTM. In 1986 he was promoted to Associate Professor
and made the Deputy Dean (Academic) for 6 years. In 1995 he was Director of the Student Support Services Unit. He
was also Head of the RF Subsystem Research Group and was responsible for several course and curriculum
development. He was one of the task force responsible for the development of KUTKM now known as
Universiti Teknikal Malaysia, Melaka. In 2001 he promoted to Professor and was made the Dean of the Electronic and
Computer Engineering Faculty.

M.Y. Azdiana received herB.Eng degree in Electronic Engineering from UniversitiTeknologi Malaysia in the year
2004, andM.Eng in Automation and Control from UniversitiTeknologi Malaysia in the year 2006. She is currently a
lecturer of Industrial Electronics Department in UniversitiTeknikal Malaysia Melaka.

Jaafar A received his B.Eng. degree from UniversitiTeknikal Malaysia Melaka in the year 2009, and he is pursuing his
Masters in Electronic System Design Engineering from UniversitiSains Malaysia. He is currently a Lecturer of
Computer Department in FKEKK, UniversitiTeknikal Malaysia Melaka.

A ALatiffreceived the B.Eng in Electrical from UniversitiTun Hussein Onn Malaysia, and the M.Eng degree in
telecommunication from Universiti of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is currently a Lecturer with Department of
Telecommunication Engineering UniversitiTeknikal Malaysia Melaka. His current research interests include
electronics, photonics and fiber optic devices.

H H M Yusof received hisB.Eng degree in Electronic Engineering from KolejUniversitiTeknikal Malaysia Melaka in
the year 2005, and M.Eng in Industrial Electronics and Control from Universiti Malaya in the year 2013. He is
currently a lecturer of Industrial Electronics Department in UniversitiTeknikal Malaysia Melaka.

W H M Saad received his Bach. of Electrical and Electronics Eng. from Univ. Putra Malaysia in year 2007 and
received his PhD in the field of Multimedia System Engineering in 2013 from the same university. He is currently work
at the Faculty of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Univ. Teknikal Malaysia Melaka as a Senior Lecturer. His
area of interests includes Medical Imaging, Image Processing and FPGA Based Technology Application.