Experimental study of a mini cooler by using Peltier thermoelectric cell

Abstract

Abstract A 20 x 26 x 18 mm mini thermoelectric Peltier cooler was designed and built in this study. The Peltier thermoelectric cell was sandwiched between an external and internal heat sinks that acted to remove heat from the cooler box. When the Peltier thermoelectric cell connected to an external power source, the Peltier effect caused the heat from the refrigerator internal space to be conducted and removed to the ambient. The experimental data from this study were used to validate the theoretical thermal resistance model. It was found that the Peltier cooler was able to produce COP higher than 0.5 which the output was quite high compared to previous studies. This cooler was able to lower cooler box temperature down to 18.5 °C from the ambient temperature by removing 25W of heat. In the future, the validated theoretical model could be used to estimate the suitable design parameter such as the type of heat sinks, the size of the cooler, the cooling temperature and the cooler performance including the coefficient of performance (COP).