• Carbon letters
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• v.1 no.3_4
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• pp.170-177
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• 2001

Lithium intercalated carbon (LIC) are basically employed as an anode for currently commercialized lithium secondary batteries. However, there are still strong interests in modifying carbon surface of active materials of the anode because the amount of irreversible capacity, charge-discharge capacity and high rate capability are largely determined by the surface conditions of the carbon. In this study, the carbonaceous materials were coated with tin oxide and copper by fluidized-bed chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method and their coating effects on electrochemical characteristics were investigated. The electrode which coated with tin oxides gave the higher capacity than that of raw material. Their capacity decreased with the progress of cycling possibly due to severe volume changes. However, the cyclability was improved by coating with copper on the surface of the tin oxides coated carbonaceous materials, which plays an important role as an inactive matrix buffering volume changes. An impedance on passivation film was decreased as tin oxides contents and it resulted in the higher capacity.

• Carbon letters
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.37-42
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• 2007

Carbon nanofiber (CNF) grown catalytically was chemically activated with KOH to attain structural change of CNF. The structural changes of CNF through KOH activation were investigated by using BET and SEM. From the results of BET, it was found that KOH activation was effective to develop particular sizes of pores on the CNF surface, increasing the surface area of CNF. Activated CNF was applied as an anode catalyst support of fuel cell. The effects of different activation conditions including the activation temperature and the activation time on the specific surface area of the CNF activated with KOH were investigated to obtain appropriate structure as a catalyst support. The 60 wt% Pt-Ru catalyst prepared was observed by using TEM and XRD.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.49 no.7
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• pp.1451-1456
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• 2017

Finding technical issues associated with equipment scale-up is an important subject for the investigation of pyroprocessing. In this respect, electrolytic reduction of 1 kg $UO_2$, a unit process of pyroprocessing, was conducted using graphite as an anode material to figure out the scale-up issues of the C anode-based system at pilot scale. The graphite anode can transfer a current that is 6-7 times higher than that of a conventional Pt anode with the same reactor, showing the superiority of the graphite anode. $UO_2$ pellets were turned into metallic U during the reaction. However, several problems were discovered after the experiments, such as reaction instability by reduced effective anode area (induced by the existence of $Cl_2$ around anode and anode consumption), relatively low metal conversion rate, and corrosion of the reactor. These issues should be overcome for the scale-up of the electrolytic reducer using the C anode.

• 한국전기화학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.26-26
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• 2003

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.169-174
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• 2000

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.38 no.8
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• pp.677-685
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• 2014

A direct carbon fuel cell (DCFC) generates electricity directly by converting the chemical energy in coal. In particular, a DCFC system with a solid oxide electrolyte and molten carbonate anode media has been proposed by SRI. In this system, however, there are conflicting effects of temperature, which enhances the ion conductivity of the solid electrolyte and reactivity at the electrodes while causing a stability problem for the anode media. In this study, the effect of temperature on the stability of a carbon-carbonate mixture was investigated experimentally. TGA analysis was conducted under either nitrogen or carbon dioxide ambient for $Li_2CO_3$, $K_2CO_3$, and their mixtures with carbon black. The composition of the exit gas was also monitored during temperature elevation. A simplified reaction model was suggested by considering the decomposition of carbonates and the catalyzed Boudouard reactions. The suggested model could well explain both the measured weight loss of the mixture and the gas formation from it.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.57 no.5
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• pp.672-678
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• 2019

The electrochemical properties of pitch-coated natural graphite(NG) were investigated as an anode for lithium-ion batteries. The anode materials were prepared by heat-treatment of mixture of NG and petroleum pitch at $1000^{\circ}C$. The pitches with various softening points were used as carbon precursor. The physical properties of anode materials were analyzed by TGA, SEM, PSA and BET. As the softening point increased, the thickness of the coating layer increased and the specific surface area decreased. The electrochemical performances were investigated by initial charge/discharge efficiency, cycle stability, cyclic voltammetry, rate performance and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The carbon-coated NG using pitch with softening points of $250^{\circ}C$ showed an initial discharge capacity of 361 mAh/g and a coulombic efficiency of 92.6%. Also, the rate performance(5 C/0.2 C) was 1.6 times higher than that of NG, and it had a capacity retention (90%) after 50 cycles at 0.5 C.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.33 no.12
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• pp.530-536
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• 2023

The theoretical capacity of silicon-based anode materials is more than 10 times higher than the capacity of graphite, so silicon can be used as an alternative to graphite anode materials. However, silicon has a much higher contraction and expansion rate due to lithiation of the anode material during the charge and discharge processes, compared to graphite anode materials, resulting in the pulverization of silicon particles during repeated charge and discharge. To compensate for the above issues, there is a growing interest in SiO_x materials with a silica or carbon coating to minimize the expansion of the silicon. In this study, spherical silica (SiO₂) was synthesized using TEOS as a starting material for the fabrication of such SiO_x through heating in a reduction atmosphere. SiO_x powder was produced by adding PVA as a carbon source and inducing the reduction of silica by the carbothermal reduction method. The ratio of TEOS to distilled water, the stirring time, and the amount of PVA added were adjusted to induce size and morphology, resulting in uniform nanosized spherical silica particles. For the reduction of the spherical monodisperse silica particles, a nitrogen gas atmosphere mixed with 5 % hydrogen was applied, and oxygen atoms in the silica were selectively removed by the carbothermal reduction method. The produced SiO_x powder was characterized by FE-SEM to examine the morphology and size changes of the particles, and XPS and FT-IR were used to examine the x value (O/Si ratio) of the synthesized SiO_x.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.296-301
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• 2023

Solid oxide fuel cell has received more attention recently due to the fuel flexibility via internal reforming. Commonly used Ni/YSZ anode, however, can be easily deactivated by carbon coking in hydrocarbon fuels. The carbon deposition problem can minimize by developing alternative perovskite anode. This study is focused on improving conductivity and catalytic activity of the perovskite anode by introducing rGO (reduced graphene oxide). Sr_0.92Y_0.08TiO₃(SYT) anode with perovskite structure was synthesized with 1wt% of rGO. The presence of rGO during anode fabricating process and cell operation is confirmed through XPS and Raman analysis. The maximum power density of rGO/SYT anode improved to 3 times in H₂ and 6 times in CH₄ comparing to that of SYT anode due to the high electrical conductivity and good catalytic activity for CH₄.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.290-298
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• 2021

A purification process was performed for the application of natural graphite as an anode material. The influence of the structural change and impurity content of graphite according to the process on the anode electrochemical characteristics was investigated. Natural graphite was chemically/physically purified by acid-treatment which used different amounts of solution of ammonium fluoride/sulfuric acid in the same ratio and thermal treatment used different temperatures (800~2500 ℃). Acid-treatment had limitation to remove impurities, and identified that all impurity contents was removed except some traces of atom such as Si by after progressed thermal-treatment until 2500 ℃. The anode materials characteristic of graphite treated by purification process was improved, and changes in the structure and impurity contents affected dominantly the capacity, rate property and initial Coulombic efficiency. Consequently, the complex purification process improved the graphite structure and also the performance of lithium ion battery by controlling the excessive formation of solid electrolyte interphase and expanding Li⁺ insertion space originated from the effective removal of impurities.