A flow-through muffler includes a plurality of heat conducting walls,
baffles, or partitions that together define a plurality of passages
arranged to form acoustic waveguides, attenuators, and/or cancellation
chambers, the walls, baffles, or partitions increasing a surface area
exposed to the exhaust gases to facilitate extraction of heat while
attenuating or canceling the resulting sound pressure waves. The muffler
may have a cooling arrangement mounted thereon, and thermoelectric
generator elements or other heat-powered device, such as a reformer,
connected across the heat differential between the cooling arrangement
and an exterior surface of the muffler housing that is in thermal contact
with the heat conducting walls, bafflers, or partitions. In addition, the
muffler may be made tuneable by providing a device for varying a length
of one of the passages relative to another passage, and by including a
sound cancellation chamber at an intersection of the passages. In
addition, the internal surfaces of the muffler may be coated with a
catalyst to provide a combination muffler and catalytic converter.