Effect of the temperature difference between the hot and cold sides of TEC on specific energy consumption of thermoelectric distiller

A novel strategy is proposed to reduce the specific energy consumption (SEC) of thermoelectric distillation system (TDS) through reducing the temperature difference between the hot and cold sides of thermoelectric cooler (ΔT TEC ) in this work. In the TDS, the hot side of the thermoelectric cooler (TEC) is utilized for evaporating water while the cold side is utilized for condensing water vapor. Whether TEC can be effectively utilized is a crucial factor influencing the energy consumption of the system. TEC is essentially a solid-state heat pump. ΔT TEC is an important parameter that could affect the performance of TEC. Therefore, reducing ΔT TEC could have an impact on the energy consumption of the TDS. In this work, ΔT TEC is indirectly controlled through the temperature of circulating water (T cw ), the flow rate of circulating water (q cw ) and the DC voltage of TEC. Results show the water productivity increases as ΔT TEC decreases, while SEC decreases with the decrease of ΔT TEC . The proposed TDS produces 0.438 L distilled water in 1 h, with SEC at a record low of 1582.2 kJ/L (439.5 kWh/m 3 ), which is a significant reduction of 25.2 % compared with the current literature report.