• Membrane Journal
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.77-84
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• 2006

Transport mechanisms of nickel ion through a continuous electrodeionization (CEDI) were investigated in terms of electric properties of ion exchange textile (IET). The porous plug model and extended Nernst-Plank (N-P) equation were applied for the description of transport mechanism of nickel ion. The model revealed that the CEDI performance was mainly due to the induced current not accelerated mobility by IET. This study also suggested that optimal operating conditions are attained with minimized electroregeneration region.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.37-43
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• 2018

In order to improve current efficiency and decrease energy consumption in the electrosynthesis of ammonium persulfate, electrolytic properties of four cation exchange membranes, namely, the $JCM-II^{(R)}$ membrane, $Nafion^{(R)}$ 324 membrane CMI-$7000^{(R)}$ membrane and a self-made perfluorosulfonic ion exchange membrane (PGN membrane) were investigated using a sintered platinized titanium anode and a Pb-Sb-Sn alloy cathode in a self-made electrolytic cell. The effect of cell voltage and electrolyte flow rate on the current efficiency and the energy consumption were investigated. The results indicated that the PGN membrane could improve current efficiency to 94.85% and decrease energy consumption to $1119kWh\;t^{-1}$ (energy consumption per ton of the ammonium persulfate generated) under the optimal operating conditions and the highest current efficiency of the $JCM-II^{(R)}$ membrane, $Nafion^{(R)}$ 324 membrane and CMI-$7000^{(R)}$ membrane were 80.73%, 77.76% and 73.22% with their lowest energy consumption of $1323kWh\;t^{-1}$, $1539kWh\;t^{-1}$ and $2256kWh\;t^{-1}$, respectively. The PGN membrane has the advantages of high current efficiency and energy power consumption and has sufficient mechanical strength with the reinforced mesh. Therefore the PGN membrane will has good value in popularization in the industrial electrosynthesis of ammonium persulfate in the future.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.60 no.1
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• pp.20-24
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• 2022

In the process of long-term use of PEMFC (Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells), chemical degradation of membrane electrode assembly (MEA) occurs due to corrosion of stack elements and contamination of supply gas. In this study, we investigated whether chemically degraded MEA can be recovered by acid washing. The performance was measured and compared in a PEMFC cell after contamination with iron ions and washing with an aqueous sulfuric acid solution. The performance was reduced by about 25% by 0.5 ppm iron ion contamination, and 97.1% performance recovery was possible by washing of 0.15 M sulfuric acid. The membrane resistance was increased due to iron ion contamination of the polymer membrane, and the ionic conductivity was restored by washing the iron ions from the membrane while minimizing the loss of the electrode catalyst by washing with a low-concentration sulfuric acid aqueous solution. The possibility of solving the decrease in durability caused by chemical contamination of PEMFC MEA by the acid washing was confirmed.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.332-339
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• 2014

In this study, an anion-exchange ionomer solution was developed by employing poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide) (PPO) as the base material for the improvement of the capacitive deionization (CDI) performances. It was found that prepared quaternized PPO (QPPO) exhibited excellent ion conductivity superior to that of a commercial anion-exchange membrane (AMX, Astom Corp., Japan) and also the electrochemical properties were shown to be comparable with each other. The CDI tests were conducted by employing the porous carbon electrode coated with the ionomer solution and the result showed the high salt removal efficiency of about 94.9%. By comparing the desalination efficiencies in conventional CDI, membrane CDI (MCDI) with a commercial anion-exchange membrane, and coated CDI (CCDI) employing the porous carbon electrode coated with QPPO, it was confirmed that CCDI shows the high salt removal performance improved by 52.1% and 18.3% compared with those of conventional CDI and MCDI, respectively.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.135-140
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• 2016

In this study, the organic-inorganic composite membranes composed of iron oxide (Ferroxane) and Nafion were developed as an alternative proton exchange membranes (PEMs) in proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Acetic acid-stabilized lepidocrocite (${\gamma}$-FeOOH) nanoparticles (ferroxane) was synthesized, and the ferroxane-Nafion composite membranes were prepared by mixing Nafion with the ferroxane. The composite membranes were investigated in terms of ionic conductivity, ion exchange capacity (IEC), FT-IR, thermal stability, etc. As a result, the ferroxane-Nafion composite membranes showed higher proton conductivity, IEC, thermal stability than Nafion recast membranes. The proton conductivity and IEC of the composite membrane with the best performance were $0.09S\;cm^{-1}$ and $0.906meq\;g^{-1}$, respectively.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.205-213
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• 2018

In this study, cross-linked membrane were successfully prepared by using brominated PPO (Br-PPO) as the main polymer chain. Chitosan and quaternary ammonium modified chitosan (QA-chitosan) was used as the cross linking agents. The cross linked membranes were post-functionalized by using trimethylamine solution. The degree of cross linking was also controlled by varying the ratio of cross linking agent. The applicability of the cross-linked membrane (A-PPO + chitosan, A-PPO + QA-chitosan) as ion exchange membranes was verified through various characterization techniques. The cross-linked membrane using QA-chitosan as cross linking agent was found to be better in performance than the membrane using pristine chitosan cross linking agent. As the percentage of QA-chitosan increased, the ion exchange capacity from 1.18 meq/g to 1.53 meq/g and water uptake from 21.6% to 42.2% was improved.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.296-301
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• 2011

This study focuses on the investigation of the impregnation of poly (vinyl alcohol) (PVA) crosslinked with poly(styrene sulfonic acid-co-maleic acid) (PSSA-MA) to porous polyethylene membrane for the fuel cell application. The membranes were characterized by the measurements of the water content, contact angle, FTIR spectra, thermal gravimetric analysis, ion exchange capacity, proton conductivity, methanol permeability and elastic modulus. The existence of hydrophilic moieties in the impregnated membranes was confirmed by contact angle and FTIR measurements. The impregnated PVA/PSSAMA(90:10) membrane exhibited a higher ion exchange capacity (1.2 meq./g dry membrane) than Nafion membrane (0.91 meq./g dry membrane). Through the elastic modulus measurement, the dimensional stability of the resulting membranes was expected to increase higher than the polyethylene membranes. The methanol crossover and water content decreased even if the PSSA-MA content increased due to the reduction of the free volume.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.87-92
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• 2010

Desalination experiments were carried out with two types of cell configuration; a CDI cell constructed with carbon electrodes only and a membrane capacitive deionization (MCDI) cell having a cation-exchange membrane on the cathode surface. The salt removal rate and desalination efficiencies increased linearly with increasing the cell potential. Although the same carbon electrodes were used in the desalination experiments, the MCDI cell showed higher salt removal efficiency than that of the CDI cell. The amount of salt removal for the MCDI cell was enhanced by 33.1~135% compared to the CDI cell, depending on the applied cell potential in the range of 0.8~1.2 V. In addition, the current efficiency for the MCDI cell was about 80%, whereas the efficiency was under 40% for the CDI cell. The higher salt removal efficiency in the MCDI cell was attributed to the fact that ions were selectively transported between the electric double layer and the bulk solution in the MCDI cell configuration.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.35-40
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• 2012

The composite membranes using Nafion as matrix and 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium tetracyanoborate (EMITCB) as ion-conducting medium in replacement of water were prepared and characterized. The amount of EMITCB in Nafion varied from 30 to 50wt%. The composite membranes are characterized by ion conductivity, thermogravitational analyses (TGA) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). The composite membranes containing EMITCB of 40wt% showed the maximum ionic conductivity which was ~0.0146 S $cm^{-1}$ at 423.15 K. It is inferred that the decrease in ionic conductivity of all the composite membranes might be due to the decomposition of a tetracyanoboric acid formed in the composite membranes. The results of SAXS indicated that the ionic clusters to conduct proton in the composite membranes were successfully formed. In accordance with the results of ionic conductivity as a function of a reciprocal temperature, SAXS showed a proportional decrease in scattering maximum $q_{max}$ as the amount of EMITCB increases in the composite membranes, which results in the increase in ionomer cluster size. The TGA showed no significant decomposition of the ionic liquid as well as the composite membranes in the range of operating temperature ($120-150^{\circ}C$) of high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells (HTPEMFC). As a result, EMITCB is able to play an important role in transferring proton in the composite membranes at elevated temperatures with no external humidification for proton exchange membrane fuel cells.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.307-319
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• 2018

Ion-exchange membrane (IEM) has fixed charge groups and is a separation membrane which is capable of selectively transporting ions of the opposite polarity. Recently, the interest in IEMs has been increasing as the importance of the desalination and energy conversion processes using them as the key components has increased. Since the IEMs determine the efficiency of the above process, it is necessary to improve the separation performance and durability of them and also to lower the expensive membrane price, which is a hindrance to the widening application of the IEM process. Therefore, it is urgent to develop high-performance and low-cost IEMs. Among various types of IEMs, pore-filled membranes prepared by filling ionomer into a porous polymer substrate are intermediate forms of homogeneous membranes and heterogeneous membranes. The production cost would be cheap like the case of heterogeneous membranes because of the use of inexpensive supports and the reduction of the amount used of raw materials, and at the same time, they exhibit excellent electrochemical characteristics close to homogeneous membranes. In this review, major research and development trends of pore-filled IEMs, which are attracting attention as high-performance and low-cost IEMs, have been summarized and reported according to the application fields.