• Macromolecular Research
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.2-8
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• 2003

The self-assembly of polymers can lead to supramolecular systems and is related to the their functions of material and life sciences. In this article, self-assembly of Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films, polymer micelles, and polymeric nanoparticles, and their biomedical applications are described. LB surfaces with a well-ordered and layered structure adhered more cells including platelet, hepatocyte, and fibroblast than the cast surfaces with microphase-separated domains. Extensive morphologic changes were observed in LB surface-adhered cells compared to the cast films. Amphiphilic block copolymers, consisting of poly(${\gamma}$-benzyl L-glutamate) (PBLG) as the hydrophobic part and poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) [or poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAAm)] as the hydrophilic one, can self-assemble in water to form nanoparticles presumed to be composed of the hydrophilic shell and hydrophobic core. The release characteristics of hydrophobic drugs from these polymeric nanoparticles were dependent on the drug loading contents and chain length of the hydrophobic part of the copolymers. Achiral hydrophobic merocyanine dyes (MDs) were self-assembled in copolymeric nanoparticles, which provided a chiral microenvironment as red-shifted aggregates, and the circular dichroism (CD) of MD was induced in the self-assembled copolymeric nanoparticles.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.513-523
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• 2014

A fluid transport technique is a key issue for the development of microfluidic systems. In this study, the movement of a droplet on horizontal hydrophilic/hydrophobic surfaces, which is a new concept to transport droplets without external power sources that was recently proposed by the author, was simulated using an in-house solution code(PowerCFD). This code employs an unstructured cell-centered method based on a conservative pressure-based finite-volume method with interface capturing method(CICSAM) in a volume of fluid(VOF) scheme for phase interface capturing. The droplet transport mechanism is examined through numerical results that include velocity vectors, pressure contours, and total kinetic energy inside and around the droplet.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.514-521
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• 2010

A new one-shot process was employed to fabricate proton exchange membranes (PEMs) over conventional solvent-casting process. Here, PEMs containing nano-dispersed silica nanoparticles were fabricated using one-shot process similar to the bulk-molding compounds (BMC). Different components such as reactive dispersant, urethane acrylate nonionmer (UAN), styrene, styrene sulfuric acid and silica nano particles were dissolved in a single solvent dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) followed by copolymerization within a mold in the presence of radical initiator. We have successfully studied the water-swelling and proton conductivity of obtained nanocomposite membranes which are strongly depended on the surface property of dispersed silica nano particles. In case of dispersion of hydrophilic silica nanoparticles, the nanocomposite membranes exhibited an increase in water-swelling and a decrease in methanol permeability with almost unchanged proton conductivity compared to neat polymeric membrane. The reverse observations were achieved for hydrophobic silica nanoparticles. Hence, hydrophilic and hydrophobic silica nanoparticles were effectively dispersed in hydrophilic and hydrophobic medium respectively. Hydrophobic silica nanoparticles dispersed in hydrophobic domains of PEMs largely suppressed swelling of hydrophilic domains by absorbing water without interrupting proton conduction occurred in hydrophilic membrane. Consequently, proton conductivity and water-swelling could be freely controlled by simply dispersing silica nanopartilces within the membrane.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.405-414
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• 2015

Fluid transport is a key issue in the development of microfluidic systems. Recently, Myong (2014) has proposed a new concept for droplet transport without external power sources and numerically validated the results for a hypothetical 2D, initially having a hemicylindrical droplet. In this paper, the movement of an actual water droplet, initially having a 3D hemispherical shape, on horizontal hydrophilic/hydrophobic surfaces is simulated using a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package, Fluent, with VOF (volume of fluid) method. The results are compared with the 2D analysis of Myong (2014), and the transport mechanism for the actual water droplet is examined based on the numerical results of the time evolution of the droplet shape, as well as the total kinetic, gravitational, surface free and pressure energies inside the droplet.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.222-229
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• 2021

Icing causes various serious problems, where water vapor or water droplets adhere at cold conditions. Therefore, understanding of ice adhesion on solid surface and technology to reduce de-icing force are essential for surface finishing of metallic materials used in extreme environments and aircrafts. In this study, we controlled wettability of aluminum alloy using anodic oxidation, hydrophobic coating and lubricant-impregnation. In addition, surface porosity of anodized oxide layer was controlled to realize superhydrophilicity and superhydrophobicity. Then, de-icing force on these surfaces with a wide range of wettability and mobility of water was measured. The results show that the enhanced wettability of hydrophilic surface causes strong adhesion of ice. The hydrophobic coating on the nanoporous anodic oxide layer reduces the adhesion of ice, but the volume expansion of water during the freezing diminishes the effect. The lubricant-impregnated surface shows an extremely low adhesion of ice, since the lubricant inhibits the direct contact between ice and solid surface.

• Applied Science and Convergence Technology
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.248-253
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• 2014

Air Gap Membrane Distillation (AGMD) is one of several technologies that can be used to solve problems fresh water availability. AGMD exhibits several advantages, including low conductive heat loss and higher thermal efficiency, due to the presence of an air gap between the membrane and condensation wall. A previous study by Bhardwaj found that the condensation surface properties (materials and contact angle) affected the total collected fresh water in the solar distillation process. However, the process condition differences between solar distillation and AGMD might result in different condensation phenomena. In contrast, N. Miljkovic showed that a hydrophobic surface has higher condensation heat transfer. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, there is no study that investigates the effect of condensation surface properties in AGMD to overall process performance (i.e. flux and thermal efficiency). Thus, in this study, we treated the AGMD condensation surface to make it hydrophobic or hydrophilic. The condensation surface could be made hydrophilic by immersing and boiling plate in deionized (DI) water, which caused the formation of hydrophilic aluminum hydroxide (AlOOH) nanostructures. Afterwards, the treated plate was coated using hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO) through plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). The result indicated that condensation surface properties do not affect the permeate flux or thermal efficiency significantly. In general, the permeate flux and thermal efficiency for the treated plates were lower than those of the non-treated plate (pristine). However, at a 1 mm and 3 mm air gap, the treated plate outperformed the non-treated plate (pristine) in terms of permeate flux. Therefore, although surface wettability effect was not significant, it still provided a little influence.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.497-500
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• 2008

Polystyrene foam (styrofoam) was treated with low-temperature oxygen plasma by means of immobilization and grafting techniques in order to modify its hydrophobic surface property to hydrophilic one using hydrophilic monomers of acrylic acid and acrylamide, and its surface chemical structure, morphology, and hydrophilicity were examined by ESCA, field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), and contactangle meter. The experimental evidences, such as the increases of O/C and N/C ratios in ESCA spectrum, thin film deposition, decrease in contact-angle, strongly suggested that the plasma treatments were useful methods for the preparation of hydrophilic surface. Contact angle diminished drastically from $84^{\circ}$ to $18{\sim}19^{\circ}$. Acrylamide, compared to acrylic acid, appeared to play a decisive role, and to be more powerful agent for improving its surface hydrophilicity.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.93-100
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• 2022

This study describes the evaluation results on the effect of soil particle surfaces coated with various hydrophobic conditions on spectral information according to water content. Wettability test and spectral information evaluation test were performed on the hydrophobic coated standard sand. When the standard sand was coated with 1%, 3%, and 5% hydrophobic, the contact angles of sand-water interface were 130°~143°, 129°~144°, and 131°~144°, respectively. This means that the contact angle increased as the degree of hydrophobic coating increased at the same drying time, but the range of the contact angle had the same wettability. This means that the contact angle increases as the hydrophobic coating degree increases at the same drying time, whereas the contact angle range has the same wettability. As a result of spectral information evaluation, the maximum spectral reflectance of the dried sand with hydrophobic condition decreased compared to that of the hydrophilic sand, as the degree of hydrophobic increased. However, the maximum spectral reflectance was increased by increasing the degree of hydrophobic under the same water content conditions.

• International Journal of Oral Biology
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.181-188
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• 2012

As the demand for large-scale analysis of gene expression using DNA arrays increases, the importance of the surface characterization of DNA arrays has emerged. We compared the efficiency of molecular biological applications on solid-phases with different surface polarities to identify the most optimal conditions. We employed thiol-gold reactions for DNA immobilization on solid surfaces. The surface polarity was controlled by creating a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) of mercaptohexanol or hepthanethiol, which create hydrophilic or hydrophobic surface properties, respectively. A hydrophilic environment was found to be much more favorable to solid-phase molecular biological manipulations. A SAM of mercaptoethanol had the highest affinity to DNA molecules in our experimetns and it showed greater efficiency in terms of DNA hybridization and polymerization. The optimal DNA concentration for immobilization was found to be 0.5 ${\mu}M$. The optimal reaction time for both thiolated DNA and matrix molecules was 10 min and for the polymerase reaction time was 150 min. Under these optimized conditions, molecular biology techniques including DNA hybridization, ligation, polymerization, PCR and multiplex PCR were shown to be feasible in solid-state conditions. We demonstrated from our present analysis the importance of surface polarity in solid-phase molecular biological applications. A hydrophilic SAM generated a far more favorable environment than hydrophobic SAM for solid-state molecular techniques. Our findings suggest that the conditions and methods identified here could be used for DNA-DNA hybridization applications such as DNA chips and for the further development of solid-phase genetic engineering applications that involve DNA-enzyme interactions.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.119-126
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• 2023

This study aimed to determine the effects of relative humidity and fiber properties on the moisture permeability of multilayer systems by measuring water vapor transmission in the overlapping condition of various fabrics. The results confirmed that the property of the fabric in contact with the humid environment affects the moisture permeability. If the layer facing the humid environment is hydrophobic and the layer facing the dry environment is superhydrophobic, water vapor transmission increases by up to 17.8% compared to the opposite conditions. Comparing the correction values of the water vapor transmission reflecting the thickness of the specimen under the multilayer condition showed that permeability was higher when the hydrophilic or hydrophobic layer was facing the humid environment. The opposite was true from the "push-pull" effect of absorption mechanism. In the case of moisture permeability, the more hydrophilic the surface facing the humid environment, the more permeable that water vapor diffuses and passes through. It was concluded that the "pull-push" effect, in which water vapor diffuses widely through the hydrophilic facing a humid environment and then passes through the hydrophobic layer, contributes to the improvement of permeability. Permeability differed according to the multilayer overlapping condition. When the relative humidity was high, the "pull-push" effect was insignificant. This is caused by water droplets absorption after the partial migration of water due to condensation. These results suggest that the overlapping conditions and properties of fabrics should vary depending on heavy sweating or not.