• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2016

Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) using the electrolytes containing various vanadium ions in sulfuric acid as supporting solution are one of the energy storage devices in alternatively charging and discharging operation modes. The positive electrolyte contains $V^{5+}/V^{4+}$ and the negative electrolyte $V^{2+}/V^{3+}$ depending on the operation mode. To prevent the mixing of two solutions, proton exchange membranes are mainly used in VRFBs. Nafion 117 could be the most promising candidate due to the strong oxidative property of $V^{5+}$ ion, but causes high crossover of electroactive species to result in a decrease in coulombic efficiency. In this study, the composite membranes using Nafion ionomer and porous polyethylene substrate were prepared to keep good chemical stability and to decrease the cost of membranes, and were compared to the properties and performance of the commercially available electrolyte membrane, Nafion 117. As a result, the water uptake and ionic conductivity of the composite membranes increased as the thickness of the composite membranes increased, but those of Nafion 117 slightly decreased. The permeability of vanadium ions for the composite membranes significantly decreased compared to that for Nafion 117. In a single cell test for the composite membranes, the voltage efficiency decreased and the coulombic efficiency increased, finally resulting in the similar energy efficiency. In conclusion, the less cost of the composite membranes by decreasing 6.4 wt.% of the amount of perfluorinated sulfonic acid polymer due to the introduction of porous substrate and lower vanadium ion permeability to decrease self-discharge were achieved than Nafion 117.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.62-69
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• 2016

In this study, sulfonated poly(ether ether ketone) (SPEEK) as cation exchange membrane and blended and crosslinked poly(vinyl amine) (PVAm) with poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) membrane as anion exchange membrane were used and then the performance experiments of the membrane capacitive deionization (MCDI) installed with both membranes were carried out. The newly prepared anion exchange membrane were characterized through water content, ion exchange capacity and FT-IR. The crosslinking time of 3 h to 5 h indicated that the salt removal was reduced from 81.3, 65.7% to 53.8%. The effect of PVAm contents from 40, 60, to 80% on the salt removal was shown 81.3, 75.2 and 37.7%, respectively. As a result, it was concluded that the crosslinking time and the content of PVAm had an influence on the salt removal efficiency.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.391-398
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• 2007

The covalently cross-linked sulfonated polyetheretherketone (CL-SPEEK) membrane was prepared by four-step synthesis of sulfonation-sulfochlorination, partial reduction, lithiation, and cross-linking, and its electrochemical and mechanical properties were investigated for water electrolysis application. The prepared ion exchange membranes showed good electrochemical and mechanical properties; proton conductivity of 0.116 S/cm at $80^{\circ}C$, water uptake of 44.6%, ion exchange capacity of 1.75 meq/g-dry-memb., tensile strength of 64.25 MPa and elongation of 61.11%. The membrane electrode assembly (MEA) with homemade membranes were prepared by non-equilibrium impregnation-reduction (I-R) method. Especially, the electrochemical surface area (ESA) and roughness factor of CL-SPEEK electrolyte by cyclic voltammetry method were 23.46 $m^2/g$ and 307.3 $cm^2-Pt/cm^2$, respectively. The prepared MEA was used in the unit cell of water electrolysis and the cell voltage was 1.81 V at 1 A/$cm^2$ and $80^{\circ}C$, with platinum loadings of 1.31 mg/$cm^2$.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.338-343
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• 2019

The water transport and water content of the electrolyte membrane greatly affect the performance of the membrane in PEMFC(Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell). In this study, the parameters (electroosmotic coefficient, water diffusion coefficient) of polymer membranes for water transport were measured by a simple method, and water flux and ion conductivity were simulated by using a model equation. One dimensional steady state model equation was constructed by using only the electro-osmosis and diffusion as the driving force of water transport. The governing equations were simulated with MATLAB. The electro-osmotic coefficient of $144{\mu}m$ thick polymer membranes was measured in hydrogen pumping cell, the value was 1.11. The water diffusion coefficient was expressed as a function of relative humidity and the activation energy for water diffusion was $2,889kJ/mol{\cdot}K$. The water flux and ion conductivity results simulated by applying these coefficients showed good agreement with the experimental data.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.965-969
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• 2005

Current density is an important operating parameter in the ion-exchange membrane process. We observed the effects of fouling of a Neosepta AMX anion-exchange membrane(Tokuyama Soda, Japan) in 0.02 M NaCl solution containing 100 mg/L sodium humate. Membrane fouling was analyzed by measuring the change in the electrical resistance in the under- and over-limiting current density regions. The experimental results found that membrane fouling was negligible at under-limiting current densities, but was increased significantly when an over-limiting current was supplied. After the fouling experiments, the current-voltage curves for the fouled membranes were measured. From the curves, we observed increased electric resistance and reduced limiting current density(LCD), caused by the accumulation of humic acid on the membrane surface. Furthermore, membrane fouling increased as the acidity of the electrolyte solution containing humic acid increased. This occurred because the fouling of an anion-exchange membrane is affected more by the physicochemical properties of the humic substance than by the surface charge of the humate.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.209-218
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• 2022

Recently, research on the development of anion exchange membranes (AEMs) has received considerable attention from the scientific community around the world. Here, we fabricated a series of AEMs with branched structures with different alkyl spacers and conducted comparative evaluations. The introduction of these branched structures is an attempt to overcome the low ionic conductivity and stability problems that AEMs are currently facing. To this end, branched polymers with different spacer lengths were synthesized and properties of each membrane prepared according to the branched structure were compared. The chemical structure of the polymer was investigated by proton nuclear magnetic resonance, Fourier transform infrared, and gel permeation chromatography, and the thermal properties were investigated using thermogravimetric analysis. The branched anion exchange membrane with (CH₂)₃ and (CH₂)₆ spacers exhibited ionic conductivities of 8.9 mS cm^-1 and 22 mS cm^-1 at 90℃, respectively. This means that the length of the spacer affects the ionic conductivity. Therefore, this study showing the effect of the spacer length on the ionic conductivity of the membrane in the polymer structure constituting the ion exchange membrane is judged to be very useful for future application studies of AEM fuel cells.

• Korean Journal of Food Science and Technology
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.630-636
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• 2007

Acidic citrus juices obtained from C. natsudaidai and C. grandis were electrodialyzed with bipolar and organic acid selective membrane (ion exchange membrane) cartridges. The pH levels of the acidic citrus juices gradually increased to 14.5% (C. grandis) and 25.2% (C. natsudaidai) by electrodialysis with the bipolar membranes, while levels remained consistent when organic acid selective membranes were applied. The total acidity levels decreased more with the organic selective membrane than with the bipolar membrane. Conductivity rose with the bipolar membranes while the value continued to fall rapidly with the organic selective membranes. Sugar and flavonoid contents remained relatively unchanged, without any significant differences before and after electrodialysis with each membrane. Also, ion contents were almost unchanged with the bipolar membranes and the electrolyte, $K_2SO_4$, as compared to rapid changes in sodium and potassium levels with the organic selective membranes and the electrolyte, $K_2SO_4$. In summary, the use of bipolar membranes provided juice with better sensory quality than that of the organic acid selective membranes.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.250-255
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• 2008

Zeolite A have been known to be chemically, mechanically and thermally quite stable. The ion-exchanged membranes were tested for the removal of water from ethanol/water mixtures by pervaporation. Since it is quite difficult to prepare the potassium form of zeolite A by a direct synthesis, it was obtained by the ion-exchange method from NaA zeolite. The effects of concentration of ethanol at the feed side and the temperature were studied on the permeation flux and the separation factor of water. After $Na^+$ ion was exchanged to $K^+$ ion, it was found that the total flux decreased and the separation factor increased.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.60-66
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• 2015

To investigate the performance of the composite carbon electrodes which the ion exchange polymers were directly casted onto porous carbon electrode surfaces, the adsorption/desorption experiments were carried out by varying the feed concentration, feed flow rate, and desorption voltages for the NaCl solution. When the feed concentration was 100 mg/L, the increase of the adsorption time led to the increase of the salt removal due to the increase of the residence time inside the cell while the increase of the feed flow rate from 15 mL/min to 23 mL/min gave the decrease of the salt removal efficiency, 12% because of the short residence time. When the feed concentration was 200 mg/L, the salt removal was shown 10~15% low because of the incomplete desorption within the desorption intervals.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.210-219
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• 1998

Sulfonated poly(ether sulfone)(SPES) of various ion exchange capacity (IEC) was prepared by heterogeneous sulfonation with chlorosulfonic acid (CSA) to make hydrophilic ultrafiltration membrane for reducing fouling. The effects of CSA concentration, reaction temperature and reaction time has been investigated. The reaction was effective when the temperature is above 10$\circ$C and the CSA concentration is over 0.05 mol, although polymer chain has been significantly degraded. The substitution of sulfonic acid groups was characterized by FTIR and $^1$H-NMR. Transport properties and fouling test have been conducted to the modified SPES ultrafiltration rnembranrs by heterogeneors method. Membranes were obtained using DCM and PVP as a non-solvent and pore forming agent, respectively. Flux reduced and rejection increased with ion exchange capacity. Finger-like structure was disappeared and the thickness of top layer was increased. Dense membrane by non-solvent DCM and porous membrane by pore forming agent PVP was prepared. Fouling was reduced with increasing ion exchange capacity because of hydrophilicity.