Hydrodynamic cavitation-driven energy harvesting in microfluidic devices using thermoelectric conversion

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.11159/htff25.180

This experimental study focuses on harvesting electrical energy from hydrodynamic cavitation (HC) in a microfluidic device with the use of a thermoelectric generator (TEG). In microscale “cavitation‐on‐a‐chip” reactors, the collapse of vapor bubbles produces intense local heat generation and shockwaves that can be converted into electrical power via the Seebeck effect. Three reactor configurations with microchannel widths of 172 µm, 75 µm, and 40 µm were tested under upstream pressures up to ~4.1 MPa at room temperature. The best performance was observed in the smallest channels, where open-circuit voltages reached up to ~18 mV and short-circuit currents up to ~0.61 mA, corresponding to a maximum estimated power output of ~11 µW/cm², comparable to wearable TEG systems where the temperature difference is low. These results prove the feasibility of converting microscale cavitation-induced thermal energy directly into electrical power.