Person:
Casi Satrústegui, Álvaro

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Casi Satrústegui

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Álvaro

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Ingeniería

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ISC. Institute of Smart Cities

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0000-0001-5459-7613

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811627

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Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
  • PublicationOpen Access
    The promising combination of thermoelectric generators with IoT technologies for autonomous monitoring systems
    (2019) Garacochea Sáenz, Amaia; Catalán Ros, Leyre; Casi Satrústegui, Álvaro; Gubía Villabona, Eugenio; Astrain Ulibarrena, David; Ingeniaritza; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación
    Monitoring stations becomes essential in any volcanic system in the world but, because of their remote location, both the electricity supply and the communications represent a technological challenge. The present work studies the feasibility of an autonomous volcanic monitoring system powered by thermoelectric generators for one of the monitoring stations of the Teide National Park (Canary Island), where temperatures of 80°C at few centimeters from the surface are found. The stable generation and robustness of thermoelectricity in combination with a new communication system based on LoRa (a low power wireless technology) make this solution a good alternative.
  • PublicationOpen Access
    Producción de energía eléctrica mediante efecto Seebeck gracias al aprovechamiento de calor residual en una industria productora de lana de roca
    (2019) Casi Satrústegui, Álvaro; Aranguren Garacochea, Patricia; Araiz Vega, Miguel; Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales y de Telecomunicación; Telekomunikazio eta Industria Ingeniarien Goi Mailako Eskola Teknikoa
    En la actualidad, más de la mitad de la energía consumida es disipada en forma de energía calorífica con el ambiente. Esta energía, que se denomina calor residual, presenta un alto potencial de aprovechamiento. Los generadores termoeléctricos son capaces de transformar esta energía calorífica en electricidad. Dichos generadores están formados por dos elementos principales: módulos termoeléctricos, donde se genera la electricidad basándose en efecto Seebeck e intercambiadores de calor, los cuales condicionan el funcionamiento del generador termoeléctrico y por tanto la electricidad producida. El objetivo de este proyecto consiste en la instalación de generadores te rmoeléctricos para el aprovechamiento del calor residual en una industria productora de lana de roca, en la cual, debido a su proceso productivo, se obtienen humos de desecho a altas temperaturas. Para alcanzar este objetivo es necesario realizar un proceso previo de diseño de los intercambiadores de calor, la construcción y experimentación de prototipos de generación en las instalaciones de la Universidad Pública de Navarra y la puesta a punto de dichos prototipos.
  • PublicationOpen Access
    Experimental evidence of the viability of thermoelectric generators to power volcanic monitoring stations
    (MDPI, 2020) Catalán Ros, Leyre; Garacochea Sáenz, Amaia; Casi Satrústegui, Álvaro; Araiz Vega, Miguel; Aranguren Garacochea, Patricia; Astrain Ulibarrena, David; Ingeniaritza; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería
    Although there is an important lack of commercial thermoelectric applications mainly due to their low efficiency, there exist some cases in which thermoelectric generators are the best option thanks to their well-known advantages, such as reliability, lack of maintenance and scalability. In this sense, the present paper develops a novel thermoelectric application in order to supply power to volcanic monitoring stations, making them completely autonomous. These stations become indispensable in any volcano since they are able to predict eruptions. Nevertheless, they present energy supply difficulties due to the absence of power grid, the remote access, and the climatology. As a solution, this work has designed a new integral system composed of thermoelectric generators with high efficiency heat exchangers, and its associated electronics, developed thanks to Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. Thus, the heat emitted from volcanic fumaroles is transformed directly into electricity with thermoelectric generators with passive heat exchangers based on phase change, leading to a continuous generation without moving parts that powers different sensors, the information of which is emitted via LoRa. The viability of the solution has been demonstrated both at the laboratory and at a real volcano, Teide (Canary Islands, Spain), where a compact prototype has been installed in an 82 C fumarole. The results obtained during more than eight months of operation prove the robustness and durability of the developed generator, which has been in operation without maintenance and under several kinds of meteorological conditions, leading to an average generation of 0.49W and a continuous emission over more than 14 km.
  • PublicationOpen Access
    Thermoelectric heat recovery in a real industry: from laboratory optimization to reality
    (Elsevier, 2021) Casi Satrústegui, Álvaro; Araiz Vega, Miguel; Catalán Ros, Leyre; Astrain Ulibarrena, David; Ingeniaritza; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería; Gobierno de Navarra / Nafarroako Gobernua, 0011-1365-2018-000101
    Thermoelectricity, in the form of thermoelectric generators, holds a great potential in waste heat recovery, this potential has been studied and proved in several laboratory and theoretical works. By the means of a thermoelectric generator, part of the energy that normally is wasted in a manufacturing process, can be transformed into electricity, however, implementing this technology in real industries still remains a challenge and on-site tests need to be performed in order to prove the real capabilities of this technology. In this work, a computational model to simulate the behaviour of a thermoelectric generator that harvest waste heat from hot fumes is developed. Using the computational model an optimal configuration for a thermoelectric generator is obtained, also an experimental study of the performance of different heat pipes working as cold side heat exchangers is carried out in order to optimize the performance of the whole thermoelectric generator, thermal resistances of under 0,25 K/W are obtained. The optimized configuration of the thermoelectric generator has been built, installed and tested under real conditions at a rockwool manufacturing plant and experimental data has been obtained during the 30 days field test period. Results show that 4.6 W of average electrical power are produced during the testing period with an efficiency of 2.38%. Moreover, the computational model is validated using this experimental data. Furthermore, the full harvesting potential of an optimized designed that takes advantage of the whole pipe is calculated using the validated computational model, resulting in 30.8 MWh of energy harvested during a sample year which could meet the demand of 8.34 Spanish average households.
  • PublicationOpen Access
    Thermoelectric generator with passive biphasic thermosyphon heat exchanger for waste heat recovery: design and experimentation
    (MDPI, 2021) Araiz Vega, Miguel; Casi Satrústegui, Álvaro; Catalán Ros, Leyre; Aranguren Garacochea, Patricia; Astrain Ulibarrena, David; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación; Gobierno de Navarra / Nafarroako Gobernua
    One of the measures to fight against the current energy situation and reduce the energy consumption at an industrial process is to recover waste heat and transform it into electric power. Thermoelectric generators can be used for that purpose but there is a lack of experimental studies that can bring this technology closer to reality. This work presents the design, optimizations and development of two devices that are experimented and compared under the same working conditions. The hot side heat exchanger of both generators has been designed using a computational fluid dynamics software and for the cold side of the generators two technologies have been analysed: a finned dissipater that uses a fan and free convection biphasic thermosyphon. The results obtained show a maximum net generation of 6.9 W in the thermoelectric generator with the finned dissipater; and 10.6 W of power output in the generator with the biphasic thermosyphon. These results remark the importance of a proper design of the heat exchangers, trying to get low thermal resistances at both sides of the thermoelectric modules, as well as, the necessity of considering the auxiliary consumption of the equipment employed.
  • PublicationOpen Access
    Thermoelectric generator for high temperature geothermal anomalies: experimental development and field operation
    (Elsevier, 2023) Alegría Cía, Patricia; Catalán Ros, Leyre; Araiz Vega, Miguel; Casi Satrústegui, Álvaro; Astrain Ulibarrena, David; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
    In the current climate and energy context, it is important to develop technologies that permit increase the use of renewable sources such as geothermal energy. Enhancing the use of this renewable source is particularly important in some places, due to its availability and the enormous dependence on fossil fuels, as is the case of the Canary Islands. This work proposes the use of thermoelectric generators with heat exchangers working by phase change to transform the heat from the shallow high temperature geothermal anomalies on the island of Lanzarote directly into electricity, since the use of conventional geothermal power plants would not be possible because they would damage the protected environment. To bring this proposal to reality, this work has succeeded in developing and field-installing a geothermal thermoelectric generator that operates without moving parts thanks to its phase-change heat exchangers. This robust generator do not require maintenance nor auxiliary consumption, and produces a minimal environmental impact, it is noiseless, and the use of water as working fluid makes it completely harmless. The developed device consists of a thermosyphon as hot side heat exchanger, thermoelectric modules and cold side heat exchangers also based in phase change. Tests were carried out in the laboratory at various heat source temperatures and varying the number of thermoelectric modules. It was determined that installing more modules decreases the efficiency per module (from 4.83% with 4 modules to 4.59% with 8 modules at a temperature difference between sources of 235 °C), but for the number of modules tested the total power increases, so the field installation was carried out with 8 modules. After the good results in the laboratory, it was satisfactorily installed at Timanfaya National Park (Lanzarote, Spain) in a borehole with gases at 465 °C. This generator presents a maximum output power of 36 W (4.5 W per module), and is generating 286.94 kWh per year, demonstrating the great potential of the developed thermoelectric generators to build a larger-scale renewable installation.
  • PublicationOpen Access
    Prospects of waste-heat recovery from a real industry using thermoelectric generators: economic and power output analysis
    (Elsevier, 2020) Araiz Vega, Miguel; Casi Satrústegui, Álvaro; Catalán Ros, Leyre; Martínez Echeverri, Álvaro; Astrain Ulibarrena, David; Ingeniaritza; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería; Gobierno de Navarra / Nafarroako Gobernua, 0011-1365-2018-000101
    One of the options to reduce industrial energy costs and the environmental impact is to recover the waste-heat produce in some processes. This paper proposes the use of thermoelectric generators at a stone wool manufacturing plant to transform waste-heat from a hot gas flow into useful electricity. A combination of two computational models, previously developed and validated, has been used to perform the optimization from a double point of view: power output and economic cost. The proposed thermoelectric generator includes fin dissipaters and biphasic thermosyphons as the hot and cold side heat exchangers respectively. The model takes into account the temperature drop along the duct where the gases flow, the electric consumption of the auxiliary equipment, and the configuration and geometry of the heat exchangers. After the simulations a maximum net power production of 45 838 W is achieved considering an occupancy ratio of 0.40 and a fin spacing of 10 mm. The installation cost is minimized to 10.6 €/W with an occupancy ratio of 0.24. Besides, the Levelised Cost of Electricity, LCOE, is estimated for a thermoelectric generator for the first time. It is necessary to use standar methodologies to compare this technology to others. The LCOE estimated for the proposed design is around 15 c€/kWh within the ranges of current energy sources, proving, in this way, the capabilities of waste-heat recovery from industrial processes at reasonable prices with thermoelectric generators.