• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.29-38
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• 2015

Cyanide can be leached out from the cyanidation method which has been used to extract high-purity gold and silver from ores, and it becomes a variety of cyanide complexes associated with heavy metals contained in ores. Such cyanide complexes are considered as persistent and non-degradable pollutants which cause adverse effects on humans and surrounding environments. Based on binding force between heavy metals and cyanide, cyanide complexes can be categorized weak acid dissociable (WAD) and strong acid dissociable (SAD). This study comparatively evaluated the performance of photo-catalytic process with regard to forms of cyanide complexes. In particular, both effects of UV LED wavelength and surface modification of photo-catalyst on the removal efficiency of cyanide complexes were investigated in detail. The results indicate that the performance of photo-catalytic oxidation is significantly affected by the form of cyanide complexes. In addition, the effect of UV LED wavelength on the removal efficiency was quite different between free cyanide and cyanide complexes associated with heavy metals. The results support that the surface modification of photo-catalyst, such as doping can improve overall performance of photo-catalytic oxidation of cyanide complexes.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.235-240
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• 2010

We investigated the carbon monoxide (CO) gas-sensing properties of nanostructured Al-doped zinc oxide thin films deposited on self-assembled Au nanodots (ZnO/Au thin films). The Al-doped ZnO thin film was deposited onto the structure by rf sputtering, resulting in a gas-sensing element comprising a ZnO-based active layer with an embedded Pt/Ti electrode covered by the self-assembled Au nanodots. Prior to the growth of the active ZnO layer, the Au nanodots were formed via annealing a thin Au layer with a thickness of 2 nm at a moderate temperature of $500^{\circ}C$. It was found that the ZnO/Au nanostructured thin film gas sensors showed a high maximum sensitivity to CO gas at $250^{\circ}C$ and a low CO detection limit of 5 ppm in dry air. Furthermore, the ZnO/Au thin film CO gas sensors exhibited fast response and recovery behaviors. The observed excellent CO gas-sensing properties of the nanostructured ZnO/Au thin films can be ascribed to the Au nanodots, acting as both a nucleation layer for the formation of the ZnO nanostructure and a catalyst in the CO surface reaction. These results suggest that the ZnO thin films deposited on self-assembled Au nanodots are promising for practical high-performance CO gas sensors.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.151-151
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• 2012

A new plasma process, i.e., the combination of PIII&D and HIPIMS, was developed to implant non-gaseous ions into materials surface. HIPIMS is a special mode of operation of pulsed-DC magnetron sputtering, in which high pulsed DC power exceeding ~1 kW/$cm^2$ of its peak power density is applied to the magnetron sputtering target while the average power density remains manageable to the cooling capacity of the equipment by using a very small duty ratio of operation. Due to the high peak power density applied to the sputtering target, a large fraction of sputtered atoms is ionized. If the negative high voltage pulse applied to the sample stage in PIII&D system is synchronized with the pulsed plasma of sputtered target material by HIPIMS operation, the implantation of non-gaseous ions can be successfully accomplished. The new process has great advantage that thin film deposition and non-gaseous ion implantation along with in-situ film modification can be achieved in a single plasma chamber. Even broader application areas of PIII&D technology are believed to be envisaged by this newly developed process. In one application of non-gaseous plasma immersion ion implantation, Ge ions were implanted into SiO2 thin film at 60 keV to form Ge quantum dots embedded in SiO2 dielectric material. The crystalline Ge quantum dots were shown to be 5~10 nm in size and well dispersed in SiO2 matrix. In another application, Ag ions were implanted into SS-304 substrate to endow the anti-microbial property of the surface. Yet another bio-application was Mg ion implantation into Ti to improve its osteointegration property for bone implants. Catalyst is another promising application field of nongaseous plasma immersion ion implantation because ion implantation results in atomically dispersed catalytic agents with high surface to volume ratio. Pt ions were implanted into the surface of Al2O3 catalytic supporter and its H2 generation property was measured for DME reforming catalyst. In this talk, a newly developed, non-gaseous plasma immersion ion implantation technique and its applications would be shown and discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.66 no.3
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• pp.209-217
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• 2022

We have developed photosensitive electrochromic smart windows that does not require any transparent conducting oxide (TCO) substrate. In our previous study, we demonstrated that a flexible film-type device made with a low temperature curing WO₃ sol and TiO₂ sol could show a reversible and rapid switching between colored and bleached state via incorporation of platinum catalysts on the surface of WO₃ layer. However, when these devices were exposed to sunlight over 4 hour, it was confirmed that they did not return to fully bleached state in the darkened state due to their overcoloring process. In this study, we added 4-hydroxy-(2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-yl)oxyl (TEMPOL) as an additive to the electrolyte of photosensitive electrochromic device to effectively prevent the undesired overcoloring process. The resulting device with TEMPOL indeed did not undergo excessive coloration and showed great reversibility even after being exposed to sunlight for over 4 hours. Various concentrations of TEMPOL were applied to compare changes in the visible transmittance and coloring/bleaching kinetics of devices. In terms of energetic point of view, we proposed a plausible mechanism of TEMPOL to prevent excessive coloration.