# Thermoelectric Generator-Powered Long-Range Wireless Real-Time Steam Leak Detection in Steam Traps  
[PERSON]  
1 Department of Microelectronic and Electronic Systems, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, 08193 Barcelona, Spain; [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (R.A.); [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (J.O.  
Energy-intensive industries, particularly those reliant on steam in their processes (such as oil and gas, chemical, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and textile sectors), are among the largest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Over the past several years, these industries have increasingly acknowledged the impact of their emissions on climate change and have started improving their productivity, efficiency, and profitability through Industry 4.0 innovations. The deployment of IIoT technologies offers these industries the opportunity to further enhance their efficiency and become more environmentally sustainable. This includes sectors with explosive atmospheres (ATEX), such as the oil and gas, chemical, and petrochemical industries, which face unique challenges in implementing large-scale IoT sensing systems [6]. However, several difficulties remain in deploying IIoT devices in industrial environments, including the following:  
* Energy requirements: Wired sensors require significant investment in infrastructure, with costs ranging between EUR 70 and 100 per meter of installation.
* Battery-powered wireless sensors: These devices involve high maintenance costs due to frequent battery replacement, averaging EUR 300 every 24 months.
* Short-range wireless protocols: To extend the battery life of IIoT devices, short-range protocols such as Bluetooth and WirelessHART are typically used. These protocols offer limited coverage, necessitating a substantial investment in wireless infrastructure, including routers and repeaters.
* Communications: Wired sensors also require significant investment in communication infrastructure, including cables, optical fiber channels, and switches.
* ATEX/EX environments: Wireless IIoT devices in these environments often use lithium batteries, with a risk of explosion, and thus cannot typically be deployed in oil and gas or petrochemical facilities.  
In these industries with high energy demands, particularly those that use steam extensively in their processes, a major inefficiency relates to steam generation, transportation, and usage. For example, in a large oil refinery, steam circuits can span hundreds of kilometers, as steam is integral to various processes, including heating, cleaning, and power generation. Some refineries have up to 1000 km or more of piping dedicated to steam, chemicals, hydrocarbons, and water transportation. Steam traps are critical for the correct operation of these processes, where a mid-sized refinery contains between 10,000 and 20,000 steam traps.  
The primary objective of this paper is to introduce a novel pre-commercial IIoT technology designed to detect steam leaks in steam traps. This device is powered by thermoelectric generators (TEGs), is maintenance-free, utilizes long-range wireless communication via LoRaWAN, and features edge computing for data preprocessing.  
This paper is structured as follows: the next section introduces steam traps and their associated failures due to steam leaks, quantifying the economic impact of their failure. Section 3 discusses current detection methods, while Section 4 introduces the technological approach used in this project to detect steam leaks through temperature delta  
Figure 1: Arctic ice melting according to citizenship.  
(\(\Delta\)T) detection and ultrasound sensors. Section 5 presents the results of a device installation in a pharmaceutical facility, and Section 6 concludes the paper with key findings.