@IJMTER-2015, All rights Reserved 119 Review on Thermoelectric Refrigeration: Applications and Technology Sagar D. Patil 1 , Kiran D. Devade 2 1 Student, Mechanical, Indira College of Engineering & Management, Pune, 2 Assistant Professor, Mechanical, Indira College of Engineering & Management, Pune, Abstract— Refrigerator and air conditioners are the most energy consuming home appliances and for this reason many researchers had performed work to enhance performance of the refrigeration systems. Most of the research work done so far deals with an objective of low energy consumption and refrigeration effect enhancement. Thermoelectric refrigeration is one of the techniques used for producing refrigeration effect. Thermoelectric devices are developed based on Peltier and Seebeck effect which has experienced a major advances and developments in recent years. The coefficient of performance of the thermoelectric refrigeration is less when it is used alone, hence thermoelectric refrigeration is often used with other methods of refrigeration. This paper presents a review of some work been done on the thermoelectric refrigeration over the years. Some of the research and development work carried out by different researchers on TER system has been thoroughly reviewed in this paper. The study envelopes the various applications of TER system and development of devices. This paper summarizes the advancement in thermoelectric refrigeration, thermoelectric materials, design methodologies, application in domestic appliances and performance enhancement techniques based on the literature. Keywords- Thermoelectric module, Peltier effect, Figure of Merit, Device Design Parameter, Seebeck coefficient, Coefficient of performance. I. INTRODUCTION Refrigeration means removal of heat from a substance or space in order to bring it to a temperature lower than those of the natural surroundings. Thermoelectric cooling is a way to remove thermal energy from a medium, device or component by applying a voltage of constant polarity to a junction between dissimilar electrical conductors or semiconductors. Thermoelectric Refrigeration provides cooling effect by using thermoelectric effect i.e. Peltier effect rather than the more prevalent conventional methods like those using the ‘vapor compression cycle’ or the ‘gas compression cycle’. [1] Thermoelectric Refrigeration finds applications in electronic systems and computers to cool sensitive components such as power amplifiers and microprocessors. TER can also be used in a satellite or space application to control the extreme temperatures that occur in components on the sunlit side and to warm the components on the dark side. In scientific applications like digital cameras and charge- coupled devices (CCDs) TER is used to minimize thermal noise, thereby optimizing the sensitivity and image contrast. The coefficient of performance (COP) of compression refrigerators decreases with the decrease in its capacity. Therefore, when it is necessary to design a low capacity refrigerator, TER is always preferable. Also, better control over the space temperature is the major advantage of the TER. Hence, TER is good option for food preservation applications & cooling of pharmaceutical products. [2]