• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.28 no.spc
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• pp.30-36
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• 2022

A sensor is needed to continuously and automatically measure the change in HNS concentration in industrial facilities that directly discharge to the sea after water treatment. The basic function of the sensor is to be able to detect ppb levels even at room temperature. Therefore, a method for increasing the sensitivity of the existing sensor is proposed. First, a method for increasing the conductivity of a film using a conductive carbon-based additive in a nanoparticle thin film and a method for increasing ion adsorption on the surface using a catalyst metal were studied.. To improve conductivity, carbon black was selected as an additive in the film using ITO nanoparticles, and the performance change of the sensor according to the content of the additive was observed. As a result, the change in resistance and response time due to the increase in conductivity at a CB content of 5 wt% could be observed, and notably, the lower limit of detection was lowered to about 250 ppb in an experiment with organic solvents. In addition, to increase the degree of ion adsorption in the liquid, an experiment was conducted using a sample in which a surface catalyst layer was formed by sputtering Au. Notably, the response of the sensor increased by more than 20% and the average lower limit of detection was lowered to 61 ppm. This result confirmed that the chemical resistance sensor using metal oxide nanoparticles could detect HNS of several tens of ppb even at room temperature.

• Clean Technology
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.285-292
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• 2022

Adsorption tower systems based on activated carbon adsorption towers have mainly been employed to reduce the emission of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), a major cause of air pollution. However, the activated carbon currently used in these systems has a short lifespan and thus requires frequent replacement. An approach to overcome this shortcoming could be to develop metal oxide photocatalysis-activated carbon composites capable of degrading VOCs by simultaneously utilizing photocatalytic activation and powerful adsorption by activated carbon. TiO₂ has primarily been used as a metal oxide photocatalyst, but it has low economic efficiency due to its high cost. In this study, ZnO particles were synthesized as a photocatalyst due to their relatively low cost. Silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) were deposited on the ZnO surface to compensate for the photocatalytic deactivation that arises from the wide band gap of ZnO. A microfluidic process was used to synthesize ZnO particles and Ag NPs in separate reactors and the solutions were continuously supplied with a pack bed reactor loaded with activated carbon powder. This microfluidic-assisted pack bed reactor efficiently prepared a Ag-ZnO-activated carbon composite for VOC removal. Analysis confirmed that Ag-ZnO photocatalytic particles were successfully deposited on the surface of the activated carbon. Conducting a toluene gasbag test and adsorption breakpoint test demonstrated that the composite had a more efficient removal performance than pure activated carbon. The process proposed in this study efficiently produces photocatalysis-activated carbon composites and may offer the potential for scalable production of VOC removal composites.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.65-75
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• 2017

C-S-H phase is the most abundant reaction product, occupying about 50~60% of cement paste volume. The phase is also responsible for most of engineering properties of cement paste. This is not because it is intrinsically strong or stable, but because it forms a continuous layer that binds together the original cement particles into a cohesive whole. The binding ability of C-S-H phase arises from its nanometer-level structure. In terms of chloride penetration in concrete, C-S-H phase is known to adsorb chloride ions, however, its mechanism is very complicated and still not clear. The purpose of this study is to examine the interaction between chloride ions and C-S-H phase with various Ca/Si ratios and identify the adsorption mechanism. C-S-H phase can absorb chloride ions with 3 steps. In the C-S-H phase with low Ca/Si ratios, momentary physical adsorption could not be expected. Physical adsorption is strongly dependent on electro-kinetic interaction between surface area of C-S-H phase and chloride ions. For C-S-H phase with high Ca/Si ratio, electrical kinetic interaction was strongly activated and the amount of surface complexation increased. However, chemical adsorption could not be activated for C-S-H phase with high Ca/Si ratio. The reason can be explained in such a speculation that chloride ions cannot be penetrated and adsorbed chemically. Thus, the maximum chloride adsorption capacity was obtained from the C-S-H phase with a 1.50 Ca/Si ratio.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.101-110
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• 2013

Due to the large specific surface area and great reactivity toward environmental contaminants, nanocrystalline mackinawite (FeS) has been widely applied for the remediation of contaminated groundwater and soil. Furthermore, nanocrystalline FeS is rather thermodynamically stable against anoxic corrosion, and its reactivity can be regenerated continuously by the activity of sulfate-reducing bacteria. However, nanocrystalline mackinawite is prone to either spread out along the groundwater flow or cause pore clogging in aquifers by particle aggregation. Accordingly, this mineral should be modified for the application of permeable reactive barriers (PRBs). In this study, coating methods were investigated by which mackinawite nanoparticles were deposited on the surface of alumina or activated alumina. The amount of FeS coating was found to significantly vary with pH, with the highest amount occurring at pH ~6.9 for both minerals. At this pH, the surfaces of mackinawite and alumina (or activated alumina) were oppositely charged, with the resultant electrostatic attraction making the coating highly effective. At this pH, the coating amounts by alumina and activated alumina were 0.038 and 0.114 $mmol{\cdot}FeS/g$, respectively. Under anoxic conditions, arsenite sorption experiments were conducted with uncoated alumina, uncoated activated alumina, and both minerals coated with FeS at the optimal pH for comparison of their reactivity. Uncoated activated alumina showed the higher arsenite removal compared to uncoated alumina. Notably, the arsenite sorption capacity of activated alumina was little changed by the coating with FeS. This might be attributed to the abundance of highly reactive hydroxyl functional groups (${\equiv}$AlOH) on the surface of activated alumina, making the arsenite sorption by the coated FeS unnoticeable. In contrast, the arsenite sorption capacity of alumina was found to increase substantially by the FeS coating. This was due to the consumption of the surface hydroxyl functional groups on the alumina surface and the subsequent occurrence of As(III) sorption by the coated FeS. Alumina, on the surface area basis, has about 8 times higher FeS coating amount and higher As(III) sorption capacity than silica. This study indicates that alumina is a better candidate than silica for the coating of nanocrystalline mackinawite.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.54-61
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• 2019

In this study, a magnetic adsorbent was synthesized by growing ferrite nanoparticles substituted with metals (Me = Co, Mn, Ni) on zeolite 4A for the efficient separation of waste adsorbents present in the solution after the adsorption of Cu(II). The metal ferrite grown on the surface of zeolite was prepared by solvothermal synthesis. Characteristics of the magnetic adsorbent were analyzed by X-ray diffractometer (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and physical property measurement system (PPMS). The saturation magnetization of the A type zeolite coated with Co-ferrite (CFZC) was the highest at 5 emu/g and the Cu(II) adsorption performance was also excellent. The adsorption results of Cu(II) on CFZC were well fitted by the Langmuir model at 298 K. Also, the adsorption of Cu(II) on CFZC follows a pseudo-second order kinetic. The Gibbs free energy values (${\Delta}G^0$) ranging from -4.63 to -5.21 kJ/mol indicates that the Cu(II) adsorption is spontaneous in the temeprature range between 298 and 313 K.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.46 no.4
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• pp.722-726
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• 2008

Silica microsphere is a world leading innovative material used in adsorbent packing materials in HPLC technology. The application of microsphere lies in the ability to the surface modification of silica with the special materials such as polymers, metals and bio-active materials. Collagen is a major structural protein of connective tissues and has a good biocompatibility. In this study, we prepared the purified silica porous microsphere, having micro diameters in the range of a pore volume at least 50% by the aggregation procedure of colloidal silica with the polymerization method (PICA). The microspheres were modified by collagen hydrogel to improve the biocompatible properties for biomedical product. The silica/collagen microsphere composite doped with silver nanoparticles was prepared and investigated the capabilities of biomaterial application through the evaluation of the structure characteristics of the microsphere composit.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.164-171
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• 2014

A highly sensitive and selective non-enzymatic glucose sensor has gained great attention because of simple signal transformation, low-cost, easily handling, and confirming the blood glucose as the representative technology. Until now, glucose sensor has been developed by the immobilization of glucose oxidase (GOx) on the surface of electrodes. However although GOx is quite stable compared with other enzymes, the enzyme-based biosensors are still impacted by various environment factors such as temperature, pH value, humidity, and toxic chemicals. Non-enzymatic sensor for direct detecting glucose is an attractive alternative device to overcome the above drawbacks of enzymatic sensor. Many efforts have been tried for the development of non-enzymatic sensors using various transition metals (Pt, Au, Cu, Ni, etc.), metal alloys (Pt-Pb, Pt-Au, Ni-Pd, etc.), metal oxides, carbon nanotubes and graphene. In this paper, we show that Ni-based nano-particles (NiNPs) exhibit remarkably catalyzing capability for glucose originating from the redox couple of $Ni(OH)_2/NiOOH$ on the surface of ITO electrode in alkaline medium. But, these non-enzymatic sensors are nonselective toward oxidizable species such as ascorbic acid the physiological fluid. So, the anionic polymer was coated on NiNPs electrode preventing the interferences. The oxidation of glucose was highly catalyzed by NiNPs. The catalytically anodic currents were linearly increased in proportion to the glucose concentration over the 0~6.15 mM range at 650 mV versus Ag/AgCl.

• Korean Journal of Mineralogy and Petrology
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• v.34 no.1
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• pp.31-40
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• 2021

The hydrogen in nominally anhydrous mineral is known to be associated with lattice defects, but it also can exist in the form of water and hydroxyl groups on the large surface of the nanoscale particles. In this study, we investigate the effectiveness of 1H solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy as a robust experimental method to quantify the hydrogen atomic environments of amorphous silica nanoparticles with varying relative humidity. Amorphous silica nanoparticles were packed into NMR rotors in a temperature-humidity controlled glove box, then stored in different atmospheric conditions with 25% and 70% relative humidity for 2~10 days until 1H NMR experiments, and a slight difference was observed in 1H NMR spectra. These results indicate that amount of hydrous species in the sample packed in the NMR rotor is rarely changed by the external atmosphere. The amount of hydrogen atom, especially the amount of physisorbed water may vary in the range of ~10% due to the temporal and spatial inhomogeneity of relative humidity in the glove box. The quantitative analysis of 1H NMR spectra shows that the amount of hydrogen atom in amorphous silica nanoparticles linearly increases as the relative humidity increases. These results imply that the sample sealing capability of the NMR rotor is sufficient to preserve the hydrous environments of samples, and is suitable for the quantitative measurement of water content of ultrafine nominally anhydrous minerals depending on the atmospheric relative humidity. We expect that 1H solid-state NMR method is suitable to investigate systematically the effect of surface area and crystallinity on the water content of diverse nano-sized nominally anhydrous minerals with varying relative humidity.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.231-238
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• 2013

In this study, the $TiO_2$ nano spheres were synthesized by Sol-gel method to give an excellent UV-blocking effect and increase waste adsorption. The pH value was adjusted to obtain a superb UV-blocking effect and adsorption capacity due to the high surface area which is the characteristics of porosity. Base treated $TiO_2$ showed outstanding characteristics. The adsorption of gycerine onto the $TiO_2$ sample using TGA resulted in a high surface area of 1.16 mg/mg. This also showed a high reflectance in the UV-A region. In order to find the optimum dispersion, inorganic powder particles were maintained their sizes as 180 nm for about 6 months. The size of particles were measured using ester oil and silicon oil. Overall, the results reveal that $TiO_2$ has an excellent capability sunscreen in the UV-A region and skin waste adsorption.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.81-85
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• 2004

Nanoporous materials with nanometer-sized pores, are of great interest in the various applications such as selective adsorbents, heterogeneous catalysts and catalyst supports because of their high porosity, surface area, and size selective adsorption properties. This study is aimed to prepare nanoporous catalytic materials on the basis of two-dimersional clay by pillaring of $SiO_2$ sol particles. $SiO_2$ Pillared Montmorillonite (Si-PILM) was prepared by ion exchanging the interlayer $Ni^{2+}$ ions of clay with $SiO_2$ nano-sized particles of which the surface was modified with nicked polyhydroxy cations sach as $Ni_4(OH)_4^{4+}$. Nano-sized $SiO_2$ particles were formed by the controlled hydrolysis of tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS). Upon pillaring of $Ni^+$-modified $SiO_2$ nano particles between the clay layers, the basal spacing was expanded largely to $45{\AA}$ and the extremely large specific surface area ($S_{BET}$) of $760m^2/g$ was obtained.