The utilization of thermoelectric technology to cool industrial enclosures can provide a number of significant advantages for certain applications when compared to “conventional” cooling methods like vapor-compression refrigeration and water-cooled systems such as air conditioners and air-to-water heat exchangers. Using an electrical current passed through semiconductors to facilitate temperature change, thermoelectric coolers eliminate the need for refrigerants and operate with fewer moving parts.
For an in-depth analysis on how thermoelectric coolers work, improvements that have been made in their efficiency and the advantages of thermoelectric cooling for industrial enclosures read Rittal’s Thermoelectric Cooling for Industrial Enclosures white paper.
A French physicist named Jean Charles Peltier laid the groundwork for modern thermoelectric cooling in the 19th century as he experimented with electricity. Passing electric currents through two dissimilar metals (wires made from copper and bismuth), Peltier noticed that a change in temperature occurred at the junctions between them. One junction point of the wires got hot while the other got cold. This phenomenon of the heat transfer of an electrical current at the junction of two dissimilar metals, known as the Peltier Effect, is the basis for thermoelectric cooling.
Conventional cooling systems like air conditioners and air-to-water heat exchangers rely on chemical refrigerants or water to cool, or remove heat from, enclosures. In addition to refrigerants, air conditioners use compressors, evaporators, condensers and fans to provide cooling. An air conditioner works by compressing (with the compressor) the vaporized refrigerant—making it a high pressure, high temperature gas. The refrigerant then moves to the condenser where a fan blows ambient air across the condenser coil, removing the heat from the refrigerant, transferring it to the surrounding environment and…>>Read More