High Productive Filtered Direct Current Cathodic Vacuum-Arc Plasma Source

AEROSPACE TECHNOLOGIES

MULTI-ELEMENT THERMOELECTRIC MICROTHERMOPILES FOR GENERATORS POWERING ON-BOARD EQUIPMENT OF SPACECRAFTS

Description Diminutive thermoelectric batteries broaden the pos- sibilities to use low-power generators for to space equipment power supply, especially for Far Space Their terrestrials appliances are as follows: power supply for various alarm and guard systems, autono- mous radio equipment. Microbatteries open up the possibility their use for power supply to medical equipment (cardio pacemakers, crioextractors, and thermal massagers). Based on thermoelectric micro- Fig.1 View of the multielement thermoelectric batteries batteries small compact supply energy sources can be created, having specific characteristics higher than those of chemical sources. Microbatteries are also high-sensitive sensors for heat flow meters, microcalorimetres, laser radiation power meters, other kind of measuring instruments. The operating principle of multielements thermoelectric batteries is based on the use of thermoelec- Areas of Application tric effects, emerging in semiconductors. A large Microbatteries are intended for use in low-power ther- number of thermocouples in thermobatteries (from moelectric generators, small-current cooling modules hundreds to tens of thousands) allow obtaining the and high-sensitive sensors. As heat sources the batter- necessary electric voltages at relatively low tempera- ies can use radionuclide decay energy, thermal flow in ture differences. soil, atmosphere and water; heat production of micro- Multielement thermoelectric battery consists of and macroorganisms, waste heat from industrial and closely packed legs 1, commutation junctions 2 and domestic origin. electric contacts 3. The length of legs is generally 1- 20 mm with cross-section from 0.10.1 mm2 to Stage of Development 0.50.5 mm2. Materials for legs are BiTe extruded al- License agreements and cooperation the further de- loys or perfect single crystals. The strength of mi- velopment are sought. crobatteries is achieved by using special high-tem- perature bonding compounds. Contact Details Organization: Institute of Thermoelectricity Innovative Aspect and Main Advantages Contact person: Lavska Lyudmyla Address: General Post-Office, Box 86, Chernivtsi, The reliability of microbatteries is provided by using 58002, Ukraine special nondestructive technology of legs manufac- Теl: (3803722) 7 58 60 turing and connections with anti-diffusion layers. In Fax: (3803722) 41917 super reliable thermoelectric microbatteries special E-mail: [email protected] redundancy system has been used to improve consid- Website: www.ite.cv.ukrtel.net erably guaranteed service life. Due to redundancy, the microbatteries retain their reability even at com- Technology Reference plete destruction of some legs. At complete destruc- Elena Taberko tion of one leg electric power generated by microbat- tery is reduced only by 1-3%.

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