• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.87-103
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• 2019

Nonaqueous organic electrolyte solution in commercially available lithium-ion batteries, due to its flammability, corrosiveness, high volatility, and thermal instability, is demanding to be substituted by safer solid electrolyte with higher cycle stability, which will be utilized effectively in large-scale power sources such as electric vehicles and energy storage system. Of various types of solid electrolytes, composite solid electrolytes with polymer matrix and active inorganic fillers are now most promising in achieving higher ionic conductivity and excellent interface contact. In this review, some kinds and brief history of solid electrolyte are at first introduced and consequent explanations of polymer solid electrolytes and inorganic solid electrolytes (including active and inactive fillers) are comprehensively carried out. Composite solid electrolytes including these polymer and inorganic materials are also described with their electrochemical properties in terms of filler shapes, such as particle (0D), fiber (1D), plane (2D), and solid body (3D). In particular, in all-solid-state lithium batteries using lithium metal anode, the interface characteristics are discussed in terms of cathode-electrolyte interface, anode-electrolyte interface, and interparticle interface. Finally, current requisites and future perspectives for the composite solid electrolytes are suggested by help of some decent reviews recently reported.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.442-455
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• 2022

High-temperature polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (HT-PEMFC) has been studied as an alternative to low-temperature PEMFC due to its fast activation of electrodes and high resistance to electrode poisoning by carbon monoxide. It is highly required to develop stable PEMs operating at high temperatures even doped by ion-conducting materials for the development of high-performance and durable HT-PEMFC systems. A number of studies have been conducted to develop polybenzimidazole (PBI)-based PEMs for applications in HT-PEMFC due to their high interaction with doped ion-conducting materials and outstanding thermomechanical stability under high-temperature operation. This review focused on the development of PBI-based PEMs showing high performance and durability. Firstly, the characteristic behavior of PBI-based PEMs doped with various ion-conducting materials including phosphoric acid was systematically investigated. And then, a comparison of the physicochemical properties of the PEMs according to the different membrane manufacturing processes was conducted. Secondly, the incorporation of porous polytetrafluoroethylene substrate and/or inorganic composites to PBI matrix to improve the membrane performances was studied. Finally, the construction of cross-linked structures into PBI-based PEM systems by polymer blending method was introduced to improve the PEM properties.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.282-285
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• 2009

This study presents preparation and characterization of composite membranes based on ionic liquids. The ionic liquids act as water in sulfonated membranes. On the behalf of ionic conduction through ionic liquid inside the membranes, non-aqueous membranes showed Arrenhius dependence on temperature with no external humidification. It was implied that hopping mechanism of proton was dominant in the ionic liquid based membranes. In addition, small angle X-ray (SAXS) studies provided the information on morphology of ionic clusters formed by the interaction between sulfonic acid groups of the polymers and ionic liquids. The SAXS spectra showed matrix peaks, ionomer peaks and Prodo's law for Nafion based composite membranes and only matrix peaks for hydrocarbon based ones. However, ionic conductivity and atomic force microscopy (AFM) images showed the clear formation of ionic clusters of the hydrocarbon based composite membranes. It implies for ionic liquid based high temperature membranes that it is important to use sulfonated polymers as solid matrix of ionic liquid which can form clear ionic clusters in SAXS spectra.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.38-42
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• 2016

Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), which is glassy polymer to have amide functional group, was induced to fabricate the facilitated olefin transport membranes for olefin/paraffin separation. Separation performance for the mixed gas consisting of propylene and propane (50 : 50 vol%) was measured by gas chromatography and bubble flow meter. The properties of membranes were confirmed by scanning electron microscope and FT-IR. The results of long-term separation tests showed the selectivity of 15 and permeance of 1.3 GPU. The membranes was compared with poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) $(POZ)/AgBF_4/Al(NO_3)_3$ membranes and the characteristics were confirmed as polymer matrix for facilitated transport membranes.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.53 no.5
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• pp.506-510
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• 2016

The eutectic melt of BaO-CuO flux is known to be a potential sintering aid for $Ba(Zr,Y)O_3$ (BZY) electrolyte for proton-conducting ceramic fuel cells (PCFCs). A density of BZY higher than 97% of theoretical density can be achieved via sintering at $1300^{\circ}C$ for 2 h using a flux composed of 28 mol% BaO and 72 mol% CuO. In the present study, chemical and structural evolution of BaO-CuO flux throughout the sintering process was investigated. An intermediate holding step at $1100^{\circ}C$ leads to formation of various impurity compounds such as $BaCuO_{1.977}$, $Ba_{0.92}Cu_{1.06}O_{2.28}$ and $Cu_{16}O_{14.15}$, which exhibit significantly larger unit cell volumes than the matrix. The presence of such secondary compounds with large lattice mismatch can potentially lead to mechanical failure. On the other hand, direct heating to the final sintering temperature produced CuO and $Cu_2O$ as secondary phases, whose unit cell volumes are close to that of the matrix. Therefore, the final composition of the flux is strongly affected by the thermal history, and a proper sintering schedule should be used to obtain the desired properties of the final product.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.14 no.5
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• pp.2529-2535
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• 2013

Sol-gel method was utilized to prepare SPEEK/PWA electrolyte composite membranes. TEOS was used as a precursor and phosphotungstic acid(PWA) as a catalyst for the sol-gel reaction. It was observed through FE-SEM analysis that the PWA and silica nanoparticles were uniformly dispersed into the polymer matrix. The water uptake of SPEEK/PWA/silica composite membranes was less affected by TEOS concentration at higher TEOS contents, while the water uptake decreased as TEOS concentration increased at lower TEOS contents. The proton conductivity of the composite membranes showed similar trend as the water uptake of the composite membranes. The methanol permeability of SPEEK/PWA/silica composite membranes decreased as TEOS concentration increased.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.56 no.2
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• pp.130-145
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• 2019

Widespread commercialization of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) is expected to be realized in various application fields with the advent of cost-effective fabrication of cells and stacks in high volumes. Cost-reduction efforts have focused on production yield, power density, operation temperature, and continuous manufacturing. In this article, we examine several issues associated with processing for SOFCs from the standpoint of the bimodal packing model, considering the external constraints imposed by rigid substrates. Optimum compositions of composite cathode materials with high volume fractions of the second phase (particles dispersed in matrix) have been analyzed using the bimodal packing model. Constrained sintering of thin electrolyte layers is also discussed in terms of bimodal packing, with emphasis on the clustering of dispersed particles during anisotropic shrinkage. Finally, the structural transition of dispersed particle clusters during constrained sintering has been correlated with the structural stability of thin-film electrolyte layers deposited on porous solid substrates.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.149-149
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• 2009

Generally, Nafion ionomer is used in the polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) electrodes to achieve high power density. At the high temperature operation of PEFC, however, ionic conductivity of Nafion remarkably decreased due to the evaporation of water in Nafion polymer. Recently, many researchers have focused on using the Ionic Liquids(ILs) instead of water in Nafion polymer. ILs have intrinsic properties such as good electrochemical stability, high ionic conductivity, and non-flammability. Especially, ILs play a crucial role in proton conduction by the Grottuss mechanism and act as water in water-free Nafion polymer. However, it was found that the ILs was leached out of the polymer matrix easily. In this study, we prepared membrane electrode assemblies with various contents of ILs. The effect of ILs in the electrode of each designed was investigated by a cyclic voltammetry measurement and the cell performance obtained through a single cell test using H2/Air gases. Electrodes with different contents of ILs in catalyst layer were examined at high temperature and low humidified condition.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.173-178
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• 2016

In this short review, the polymer electrolyte membranes consisting of polymer and Ag salts were introduced and various approaches to solve the long-term stability were summarized. In particular, utilizing $AgNO_3$ as carriers with ionic liquid, the replacement of polymer matrix as poly(ethylene phthalate) (PEP) for strong coordinative interactions with Ag ions and the introduction of $Al(NO_3)_3$ to $polymer/AgBF_4$ complexes were introduced for long-term stable facilitated olefin transport membranes. For the polymer nanocomposite membranes, the role of electron acceptors as polarizer on the surface of AgNPs and the approach to solve the low permeance were introduced.

• Korean Membrane Journal
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2009

This work reports the preparation of proton conductive crosslinked polymer electrolyte membranes by blending poly(vinyl chloride)-g-poly(hydroxyl ethyl acrylate) (PVC-g-PHEA) and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA). The PHEA chains of the graft copolymer were crosslinked with PVA using sulfosuccinic acid (SA) via the esterification reaction between -OH of polymer matrix and -COOH of SA. The PVC-g-PHEA graft copolymer was synthesized via atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) using direct initiation of the secondary chlorines of PVC backbones. Ion exchange capacity (IEC) continuously increased with increasing concentrations of SA, due to the increasing portion of charged groups in the membrane. However, the water uptake increased up to 20.0 wt% of SA concentration above which it decreased monotonically. The membrane exhibited a maximum proton conductivity of 0.026 S/cm at 20.0 wt% of SA concentration, which is presumably due to competitive effect between the increase of ionic sites and the crosslinking reaction.