• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.139-145
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• 2001

Various compositions of iron oxide based materials as a cathode of lithium secondary battery have been fabricated and tested with electrochemical method. A layered form of $LiFeO_2$ was synthesized by mixing and heating the initial materials of $FeCl_3\;6H_2O,\;LiOH$ and NaOH at low temperature. The effect of changing the precursors composition was investigated. As a result, when increasing the additive amount of NaOH, the capacity of the electrode is decreased but the performance and declining rate of capacity became smaller. $LiFeO_2$ synthesized with the weight ratio of $NaOH/FeCl_3/LiOH,\;2/1/7$ showed the largest capacity, but the discharging efficiency was sharply decreased after 30 cycles. Charge-discharge tests of lithium cells with $LiFeO_2$ cathode having the layer structure were performed. This cell showed the reversibility in the range of 1.5-4.5V of cell voltage. By using CPR method, chemical diffusion coefficients were measured in 1M $LiPF_6/EC/DEC$ solution. The value of chemical diffusion coefficient decreased with increasing the lithium content x, In 0.5$10^{-11}^cm^2/s$.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.44-51
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• 1998

In this work, the in-situ viscoelastic characteristics of electropolymerized polypyrrole (PPy) thin film were investigated in the electrolyte solutions of $NaClO_4$, $LiClO_4$, and $KClO_4$ by using quartz crystal analyzer (QCA). One side of quartz crystal was used as a working electrode mounted in a special fabricated QCA electrochemical ceil. The resonant frequency and resonant resistance diagram (F-R diagram) was used to interpret the viscoelastic characteristics of Pby thin film and compared with AFM photograph. The resonant frequency, resonant resistance, and current were measured to analyze the redox reaction behaviors when the cyclic voltammetry was performed using AT-cut quartz crystal electrode coated with galvanostatically polymerized Ppy film. The result suggests that the Ppy film polymerized onto the crystal behaves as a rigid elastic layer at the initial stage of electropolymerization, while the film becomes a viscoelastic layer the polymerization proceeds further. At the same time, the film thickness increases and some morphological changes take place due to the penetration of electrolyte solution into the film. These phenomena take place when cyclic voltammetry was performed using different electrolyte solution compared with polymerization process.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2016

Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) using the electrolytes containing various vanadium ions in sulfuric acid as supporting solution are one of the energy storage devices in alternatively charging and discharging operation modes. The positive electrolyte contains $V^{5+}/V^{4+}$ and the negative electrolyte $V^{2+}/V^{3+}$ depending on the operation mode. To prevent the mixing of two solutions, proton exchange membranes are mainly used in VRFBs. Nafion 117 could be the most promising candidate due to the strong oxidative property of $V^{5+}$ ion, but causes high crossover of electroactive species to result in a decrease in coulombic efficiency. In this study, the composite membranes using Nafion ionomer and porous polyethylene substrate were prepared to keep good chemical stability and to decrease the cost of membranes, and were compared to the properties and performance of the commercially available electrolyte membrane, Nafion 117. As a result, the water uptake and ionic conductivity of the composite membranes increased as the thickness of the composite membranes increased, but those of Nafion 117 slightly decreased. The permeability of vanadium ions for the composite membranes significantly decreased compared to that for Nafion 117. In a single cell test for the composite membranes, the voltage efficiency decreased and the coulombic efficiency increased, finally resulting in the similar energy efficiency. In conclusion, the less cost of the composite membranes by decreasing 6.4 wt.% of the amount of perfluorinated sulfonic acid polymer due to the introduction of porous substrate and lower vanadium ion permeability to decrease self-discharge were achieved than Nafion 117.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.562-566
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• 2012

A novel design of tubular segmented-in-series(SIS) solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) sub module was presented in this paper. The tubular ceramic support was fabricated by the extrusion technique. The NiO-YSZ anode and the yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ) electrolyte were deposited onto the ceramic support by dip coating method. After sintering at $1350^{\circ}C$ for 5 h, a dense and crack-free YSZ film was successfully fabricated. Also, the multi-layered cathode composed of LSM-YSZ composite, LSM and LSCF were coated onto the sintered ceramic support by dip coating method and sintered at $1150^{\circ}C$. The performance of the tubular SIS SOFC cell and sub module electrically connected by the Ag-glass interconnect was measured and analysed with different fuel flow and operating temperature.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.56 no.5
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• pp.718-724
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• 2018

In this study, the $Ni_{0.9}Co_{0.05}Ti_{0.05}(OH)_2$ precursor was prepared by the concentration gradient co-precipitation method. In order to overcome the structural change due to oxygen desorption in the cathode active material with high nickel content, the physical and electrochemical analysis of the cathode active material according to the calcination temperature were investigated. Physical properties of $Li_{1.05}Ni_{0.9}Co_{0.05}Ti_{0.05}O_2$ were analyzed by FE-SEM, XRD and TGA. The electrochemical performance of the coin cell using a cathode active material and $LiPF_6$(EC:EMC=1:2 vol%) electrolyte was evaluated by the initial charge/discharge efficiency, cycle retention, and rate capabilities. As a result, the initial capacity and initial efficiency of cathode materials were excellent with 244.5~247.9 mAh/g and 84.2~85.8% at the calcination temperature range of $750{\sim}760^{\circ}C$. Also, the capacity retention exhibited high stability of 97.8~99.1% after 50cycles.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.173-182
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• 2019

Much research has been made for finding new and eco-friendly alternative sources of energy to solve the problems related with the pollution caused by emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide as the use of fossil fuels increases worldwide. Among them, fuel cells draws particular interests as an eco-friendly energy generator because only water is obtained as a by-product. Anion exchange membrane-based alkaline fuel cell (AEMFC) that uses anion exchange membrane as an electrolyte is of increased interest recently because of its advantages in using low-cost metal catalyst unlike the PEMFC (potton exchange membrane fuel cell) due to the high-catalyst activity in alkaline conditions. The main properties required as an anion exchange membrane are high hydroxide conductivity and chemical stability at high pH. Recently we reported a chemically crosslinked poly(2-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPO) by reacting PPO with N,N,N',N'-tetramethyl-1,6-hexanediamine as novel anion exchange membranes. In the current work, we further developed the same crosslinked polymer but having enhanced physicochemical properties, including higher conductivity, increased mechanical and dimensional stabilities by using the PPO with a higher molecular weight and also by increasing the crosslinking density. The obtained polymer membrane also showed a good cell performance.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.413-419
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• 2019

In the recent, as a world demand of energy resources has been transformed from fossil fuels to hydrogen-based clean energy resources, a huge attention has been attracted to increase the performance and decrease a production cost of core materials in fuel cell technology. The utilization of reinforced composite membranes as electrolytes in the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells can reduce the use of high cost perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA), mitigate the cell impedance, and improve the dimensional stability as well as the interfacial stability, giving rise to achieve both an improved performance and a reduction of production costs of the fuel cell devices. In this study, we investigate the effects of physical characteristics and cell performances according to the various ionomer solvents in the solution based manufacturing process of reinforced composite electrolyte membrane.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.60 no.2
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• pp.184-192
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• 2022

Porous NiO synthesized via hydrothermal synthesis was used in the electrodes of lithium-sulfur batteries to inhibit the elution of lithium polysulfide. The electrode of the lithium-sulfur battery was manufactured as a freestanding flexible electrode using an economical and simple vacuum filtration method without a current collector and a binder. The porous NiO-added S/CNT/NiO electrode exhibited a high initial discharge capacity of 877 mA h g^-1 (0.2 C), which was 125 mA h g^-1 higher than that of S/CNT, and also showed excellent retention of 84% (S/CNT: 66%). This is the result of suppressing the dissolution of lithium polysulfide into the electrolyte by the strong chemical bond between NiO and lithium polysulfide during the charging and discharging process. In addition, for the flexibility test of the S/CNT/NiO electrode, the 1.6 × 4 cm² pouch cell was prepared and exhibited stable cycle characteristics of 620 mA h g^-1 in both the unfolded and folded state.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.62 no.3
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• pp.238-245
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• 2024

The lactate electrode can be utilized either as an electrode for lactate sensor to monitor the patient's health status, stress level, and athlete's fatigue in real time or lactate fuel cell. In this study, we fabricated a high-performance electrode composed of lactate oxidase, catalase, and mitochondria, and investigated the surface analysis and electrochemical properties of this electrode. Carbon paper modified with single-walled carbon nanotubes (CP-SWCNT) had significantly improved electrical conductivity compared to before modification. The electrode to which lactate oxidase, catalase, and mitochondria were attached (CP-SWCNT-LOx-Cat-Mito) produced a higher current than the electrode to which lactate oxidase and catalase were attached. The amount of reduction current produced by the bilirubin oxidase (BOD)-attached electrode (CP-SWCNT-BOD) was greatly affected by the presence or absence of oxygen in the electrolyte. The fuel cell composed of CP-SWCNT-LOx-Cat-Mito (anode) and CP-SWCNT-BOD (cathode) produced maximum power (29 ㎼/cm²) at a discharge current density of 133 ㎂/cm². From this study, we had proved that mitochondria is essential for improving lactate sensor and fuel cell performance.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.57 no.6
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• pp.868-873
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• 2019

In this study, the evaluation of performance of AORFB using methyl viologen and TEMPOL as organic active materials in neutral supporting electrolyte (NaCl) with various membrane types was performed. Using methyl viologen and TEMPOL as active materials in neutral electrolyte solution, the cell voltage is 1.37V which is relatively high value for AORFB. Two types of membranes were examined for performance comparison. First, when using Nafion 117 membrane which is commercial cation exchange membrane, only the charge process occurred in the first cycle and the single cell couldn't work because of its high resistance. However, when using Fumasep anion exchange membrane (FAA-3-50) instead of Nafion 117 membrane, the result was obtained as the totally different charge-discharge graphs. When current density was $40mA{\cdot}cm^{-2}$ and cut off voltage range was from 0.55 V to 1.7 V, the charge efficiency (CE) was 97% and voltage efficiency (VE) was 78%. In addition, the discharge capacity was $1.44Ah{\cdot}L^{-1}$ which was 54% of theoretical capacity ($2.68Ah{\cdot}L^{-1}$) at $10^{th}$ cycle and the capacity loss rate was $0.0015Ah{\cdot}L^{-1}$ per cycle during 50 cycles. Through cyclic voltammetry test, it seems that this difference in the performance between the full cell using Nafion 117 membrane and Fumasep anion exchange membrane came from increasing resistance due to chemical reaction between membrane and active material, not the capacity loss due to cross-over of active material through membrane.