Waste heat-driven Stirling engine systems: Vehicle cogeneration domain

The current paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of Stirling engines powered by waste heat. This concept is interesting because electricity can be generated from waste energy that is otherwise dumped into the environment. The current idea has a huge environmental impact because large amounts of power may be generated without the need for new fuel, making it a CO2 free technology. There is a larger exergy flow in cases where the waste stream is high temperature (300–1000°C), thus more power can be produced. However, the potential for electricity also exists in lower temperature levels (100–150°C) but with a lower conversion ratio. The present chapter summarizes and discusses the most critical studies in the literature and describes a case study of using double-acting Stirling engine to recover heat from internal combustion engine exhaust gases. The usefulness of Stirling heat recovery system device in automobiles was investigated. New technologies and cogeneration experiments including waste heat recovery and Stirling engines are promoted. There is no other review study that focuses on these aspects, so this work can add something new to the existing literature, especially in the domain of vehicle cogeneration.