Thermoelectric-based temperature control for rapid heating and cooling

Temperature control is one of the important factors in chemical sensor using Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM). The QCM sensor has been known to be sensitive to deposited mass and also the mechanical property of the sensitive coating layer. The mechanical property of the coating layer and also the interaction between the coating layer and the target molecules also depend on the temperature. Therefore it is important to maintain the temperature of the reaction chamber of the chemical sensor. This paper presents the development of a temperature control system using thermoelectric modules. The system was developed such that the temperature of the target can be heated or cooled with a simple system and consumed little energy. The surface temperature of the thermoelectric was measured using a thermistor. The microcontroller (Arduino module) acts as the heart of the control system. The heating and cooling of the thermoelectric were altered using the H-bridge circuit which able to switch the current direction flowing into the thermoelectric element. A simple pulse width modulation was used to deliver the current to the thermoelectric element to control the heating or cooling speed. The result showed that the system could maintain the target temperature at a given set value.