Converting waste heat from automobiles to electrical energy

The world is facing energy crisis and with our fuel resources coming to end, there need to be ways to use wasted and available forms of energy to produce electricity or utilize them to reduce usage of other power hungry devices. To meet the increasing world demand for energy, the rate of depletion of non-renewable energy sources must be reduced while developing alternative renewable sources. One way to do this is by waste heat recovery. Most of the techniques currently available recover waste heat in the form of thermal energy which is then converted to electricity in a conventional steam power plant. [6] Our main aim is to explore the potential of heat energy across systems, to help in producing the all time need of human life-energy/power and reduce environmental effects of heating from vehicle pollutants, using the less explored concepts of TEG. Today, 70% of produced energy in automobiles is wasted in form of heat by exhaust gases. The paper tries to prove the technical feasibility of conversion of heat energy radiated from automobile engines to produce power equivalent to a 35Amp-hr battery, using thermoelectric generators applying Seebeck principle, discovered in early 19^th century. The method is based on basic theoretical concepts, and in practice shows similar results.