• Korean Journal of Materials Research
• /
• v.21 no.1
• /
• pp.1-7
• /
• 2011

Methods of producing hydrogen include steam reforming, electrochemical decomposition of water, and the SI process. Among these methods, the Sulfur iodine process is one of the most promising processes for hydrogen production. The thermochemical sulfur-iodine (SI) process uses heat from a high-temperature-gas nuclear reactor to produce $H_2$ gas; this process is known for its production of clean energy as it does not emit $CO_2$ from water. But the SI-process takes place in an extremely corrosive environment for the materials. To endure SI environments, the materials for the SI environment will have to have strong corrosion resistance. This work studies the corrosion resistances of the Fe-Si, Ni-Ti and Ni Alloys, which are tested in SI-process environments. Among the SI-process environments, the conditions of boiling sulfuric acid and decomposed sulfuric acid are selected in this study. Before testing in boiling sulfuric acid environments, the specimens of Fe-4.5Si, Fe-6Si, Ni-4.5Si, Ni-Ti-Si-Nb and Ni-Ti-Si-Nb-B are previously given heat treatment at $1000^{\circ}C$ for 48 hrs. The reason for this heat treatment is that those specimens have a passive film on the surface. The specimens are immersed for 3~14 days in 98wt% boiling sulfuric acid. Corrosion rates are measured by using the weight change after immersion. The corrosion rates of the Fe-6Si and Ni-Ti-Si-Nb-B are found to decrease as the time passes. The corrosion rates of Fe-6si and Ni-Ti-Si-Nb-B are measured at 0.056 mm/yr and 0.16 mm/yr, respectively. Hastelloy-X, Alloy 617, Alloy 800H and Haynes 230 are tested in the decomposed sulfuric acid for one day. Alloy 800H was found to show the best corrosion resistance among the materials. The corrosion rate of Alloy 800H is measured at -0.35 mm/yr. In these results, the corrosion resistance of materials depends on the stability of the oxide film formed on the surface. After testing in boiling sulfuric acid and in decomposed sulfuric acid environments, the surfaces and compositions of specimens are analyzed by SEM and EDX.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
• /
• v.31 no.5
• /
• pp.514-519
• /
• 2020

Graphite materials for lithium ion battery anode materials are the most commercially available due to their structural stability and low price. Recently, research efforts have been conducted on carbon coatings by improving side reactions at the edge site of carbon materials. The carbon coating process has classified into a CVD by chemical reaction, wet coating process with solvent and dry coating by mechanical impact. In this paper, the rapid crush/coating process was used to solve the problem of which only few parts of the carbon precursor (pitch) can be used and also environmental problems caused by solvent removal in the wet coating process. When the ratio of needle coke to pitch was 8 : 2 wt%, and the rapid crush/coating process was carried out, it was confirmed that the fracture surface was coated by pitch. The pitch-coated sample was treated at 2400 ℃ and 41.8% improvement in 10C/0.1C rate characteristic was observed. It is considered that the material simply manufactured through the simple crush/coating process can be used as an anode electrode material for a lithium ion battery.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.50 no.4
• /
• pp.696-701
• /
• 2012

Non-aqueous processes have been developed for stable management and reuse of spent fuels. Nowadays, a plan for the management of spent fuel is being sought focusing on a non-aqueous process in Korea. Named as pyroprocessing, it includes an electrolytic reduction process using molten salt at high temperature for the spent fuels, which provides metallic product for a following electro-refining process. The electrolytic reduction process utilizes electrochemical reaction producing Li to convert oxides into metals in high temperature LiCl medium. Various kinds of elements in the spent fuels would be distributed in the system according to their respective reactivity with the reductant, Li, and the medium, LiCl. This study elucidates the reactions of the elements to understand the behavior of composite elements on the spent fuels by thermodynamic calculations. Uranium and transuranic are reduced into their metallic forms while rare-earth oxides, except for Eu, are stable against the reaction at a process temperature. This study also covers the tendency of reactions with respect to the temperature and, finally, estimates radioactivity and heat load on the distributed phases based on the reference spent fuel characteristics.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.51 no.6
• /
• pp.700-708
• /
• 2013

Pyroprocessing has been developed for the purpose of resolving the current spent nuclear fuel management issue and enhancing the recycle of valuable resources. Pyroprocessing has been developed with the dry technologies which are performed under high temperature conditions excluding any aqueous processes. Pyro-processes which are based on the electrochemical principles require pretreatment processes and a voloxidation process is considered as a pretreatment step for an electrolytic reduction process. Various kinds of gas conditions are applicable to the voloxidation process and the understanding of Cs behavior during the process is of importance for the analyses of waste characteristics and heat load on the overall pyroprocessing. In this study, the changes of chemical compounds with the gas conditions were calculated by analyzing gas-solid reaction behavior based on the chemical equilibria on a Cs-Te-O system. $Cs_2TeO_3$ and $Cs_2TeO_4$ were selected after a Tpp diagram analysis and it was confirmed that they are relatively stable under oxidizing atmospheres while it was shown that Cs and Te would be removed by volatilization under reducing atmosphere at a high temperature. This work provided basic data for predicting Cs behavior during the voloxidation process at which compounds are chemically distributed as the first stage in the pyroprocessing and it is expected that the results would be used for setting up material balances and related purposes.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
• /
• v.12 no.1
• /
• pp.7-17
• /
• 2014

Molten salt electrorefining process achieves uranium deposits at cathode using an electrochemical processing of spent nuclear fuel. In order to recover pure uranium from cathode deposit containing about 30wt% salt, the adhered salt should be removed by cathode process (CP). The CP has been regarded as one of the bottle-neck of the pyroprocess as the large amount of uranium is treated in this step and the operation parameters are crucial to determine the final purity of the product. Currently, related research activities are mainly based on experiments consequently it is hard to observe processing variables such as temperature, pressure and salt gas behavior during the operation of the cathode process. Hence, in this study operation procedure of cathode process is numerically described by using appropriate mathematical model. The key parameters of this research are the amount of evaporation at the distillation part, diffusion coefficient of gas phase salt in cathode processor and phase change rate at condensation part. Each of these conditions were composed by Hertz-Langmuir equation, Chapman-Enskog theory, and interphase mass flow application in ANSYS-CFX. And physical properties of salt were taken from the data base in HSC Chemistry. In this study, calculation results on the salt gas behavior and optimal operating condition are discussed. The numerical analysis results could be used to closely understand the physical phenomenon during CP and for further scale up to commercial level.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.80-86
• /
• 2016

High Ni content layered oxide materials for the positive electrode in lithium-ion batteries have high specific capacity. However, their poor electrochemical and thermal stability at elevated temperature restrict the practical use. A small amount of $Al_2O_3$ was added to the mixture of transition metal hydroxide and lithium hydroxide. The $LiNi_{0.6}Co_{0.2}Mn_{0.2}O_2$ was simultaneously doped and coated with $Al_2O_3$ during heat-treatment. Electrochemical characteristics of modified $LiNi_{0.6}Co_{0.2}Mn_{0.2}O_2$ were evaluated by the galvanostatic cycling and the LSTA(linear sweep thermmametry) at the constant voltage conditions. The nano-sized $Al_2O_3$ added materials show better cycle performance at elevated temperature than that of micro-sized $Al_2O_3$. As the added amount of nano-$Al_2O_3$ increased, the thermal stability of electrode also enhanced, but the use of 2.5 mol% Al showed the best high temperature performance.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Building Construction
• /
• v.22 no.6
• /
• pp.651-662
• /
• 2022

The electrochemical impedance spectroscopy(EIS) method was used to evaluate the concrete deterioration process related to chloride-induced steel corrosion with various corrosion levels(initiation, rust propagation and acceleration periods). The impressed current technique, with four total current levels of 0C, 13C, 65C and 130C, was used to accelerate steel corrosion in concrete cylinder samples with w/c ratio of 0.4, 0.5, and 0.6, immersed in a 0.5M NaCl solution. A series of EIS measurements was performed to monitor concrete deterioration during the accelerated corrosion test in this study. Some critical parameters of the equivalent circuit were obtained through the EIS analysis. It was observed that the charge transfer resistance(R_c) dropped sharply as the impressed current increased from 0C to 13C, indicating a value of approximately 10kΩcm². However, the sensitivity of R_c significantly decreased when the impressed current was further increased from 13C to 130C after corrosion of steel had been initiated. Meanwhile, the double-layer capacitance value(C_dl) linearly increased from 50×10^-6μF/cm² to 250×10^-6μF/cm² as the impressed current in creased from 0C to 130C. The results in this study showed that monitoring C_dl is an effective measurement parameter for evaluating the progress of internal concrete damages(de-bonding between steel and concrete, micro-cracks, and surface-breaking cracks) induced by steel corrosion. The findings of this study provide a fundamental basis for developing an embedded sensor and signal interpretation method for monitoring concrete deterioration due to steel corrosion at various corrosion levels.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.1-10
• /
• 2023

The cathode, which is one of the four major components of a lithium secondary battery, is an important component responsible for the energy density of the battery. The mixing process of active material, conductive material, and polymer binder is very essential in the commonly used wet manufacturing process of the cathode. However, in the case of mixing conditions of the cathode, since there is no systematic method, in most cases, differences in performance occur depending on the manufacturer. Therefore, LiMn₂O₄ (LMO) cathodes were prepared using a commonly used THINKY mixer and homogenizer to optimize the mixing method in the cathode slurry preparation step, and their characteristics were compared. Each mixing condition was performed at 2000 RPM and 7 min, and to determine only the difference in the mixing method during the manufacture of the cathode other experiment conditions (mixing time, material input order, etc.) were kept constant. Among the manufactured THINKY mixer LMO (TLMO) and homogenizer LMO (HLMO), HLMO has more uniform particle dispersion than TLMO, and thus shows higher adhesive strength. Also, the result of the electrochemical evaluation reveals that HLMO cathode showed improved performance with a more stable life cycle compared to TLMO. The initial discharge capacity retention rate of HLMO at 69 cycles was 88%, which is about 4.4 times higher than that of TLMO, and in the case of rate capability, HLMO exhibited a better capacity retention even at high C-rates of 10, 15, and 20 C and the capacity recovery at 1 C was higher than that of TLMO. It's postulated that the use of a homogenizer improves the characteristics of the slurry containing the active material, the conductive material, and the polymer binder creating an electrically conductive network formed by uniformly dispersing the conductive material suppressing its strong electrostatic properties thus avoiding aggregation. As a result, surface contact between the active material and the conductive material increases, electrons move more smoothly, changes in lattice volume during charging and discharging are more reversible and contact resistance between the active material and the conductive material is suppressed.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
• /
• v.14 no.2
• /
• pp.64-75
• /
• 2015

Single $TiO_2$ coating prepared by sol-gel process usually experiences cracks in coating layer. In order to prevent cracks, an inorganic-organic hybrid $TiO_2-SiO_2$ coating was synthesized by combining precursors with an organic functional group. Five different coatings with various ratios of (1:8, 1:4, 1:1, 1:0.25 and 1:0.125) titanium alkoxide (TBOT, Tetrabutylorthotitanate) to organo-alkoxysilane (MAPTS, ${\gamma}$-Methacryloxy propyltrimethoxysilane) on carbon steel substrate were made by sol-gel dip coating. The prepared coatings were analyzed to study the coating properties (surface crack, thickness, composition) by scanning electron microscope (SEM), focused ion beam (FIB), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). Potentiodynamic polarization tests and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were also performed to evaluate the corrosion characteristics of the coatings. Crack free $TiO_2-SiO_2$ hybrid coatings were prepared with the optimization of the ratio of TBOT to MAPTS. The corrosion rates were significantly decreased in the coatings for the optimized precursor ratio without cracks.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
• /
• v.6 no.2
• /
• pp.65-73
• /
• 1995

Negative electrode was prepared by mixing $Ti_{0.7}Zr_{0.3}Cr_{0.3}Mn_{0.3}V_{0.6}Ni_{0.8}$ alloy powder with copper or nickel powder and pressing in the air. The cycled electrodes were analyzed with SEM, potentiostat and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. It was found that the Cu-compacted electrode showed better low temperature dischargeability and higher rate capability than Ni-compacted electrode. From SEM analysis of the cycled electrode compacted with copper powder, it was observed that the surface of MH particles was covered with copper grains and whisker precipitated from electrolyte after dissolution during cell test. It is found that the improved electrode characteristics are attributed to the copper layer on MH particles deposited by dissolution and precipitation(DP) process.