Spray-assisted hot-side cooling for fanless thermoelectric cooling systems using an aluminum heat spreader
Heat and Mass Transfer/Waerme- und Stoffuebertragung, cilt.62, sa.11, 2026 (SCI-Expanded, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 62 Sayı: 11
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1007/s00231-026-03752-y
- Dergi Adı: Heat and Mass Transfer/Waerme- und Stoffuebertragung
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus, Aerospace Database, Chimica, Compendex, INSPEC, Academic Search Ultimate (EBSCO), Engineering Source (EBSCO), Materials Science & Engineering Collection (ProQuest), Technology Collection (ProQuest)
- Gazi Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
This study experimentally investigates a spray-assisted evaporative cooling strategy for enhancing hot-side heat dissipation in a fanless thermoelectric cooling system. Unlike conventional approaches relying on finned heat sinks, forced convection, or liquid circulation, the proposed system employs a single large aluminum plate positioned vertically and cooled by a controlled surface spraying system. For spray cooling, water and alcohol-water mixtures at different concentrations have been tested. The vertical positioned aluminum plate promotes natural convection, while intermittent spraying introduces evaporative cooling without the need for pumps, fans, or closed-loop liquid circuits. The natural convection and evaporative cooling can improve cooling and thermal uniformity on the hot side of the thermoelectric module. Experimental results demonstrate an enhancement in cooling effect and thermal performance under low-power operation, with alcohol–water mixtures. By using alcohol-water mixtures additional benefits over water due to reduced surface tension and increased evaporation efficiency were observed. The proposed approach provides a practical, low-cost and mechanically straightforward solution for hot-side thermal management in thermoelectric systems, making it suitable for noise-sensitive and portable cooling applications such as electronics enclosures, medical and laboratory devices and small-scale off-grid cooling systems.