• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.34 no.5
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• pp.1513-1520
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• 2013

Novel chitosan (CS) based membrane networks were developed by solution casting and followed by crosslinking with different crosslinkers such as glutaraldehyde, urea-formaldehyde, and thiourea-formaldehyde. The developed membrane networks were designated as CS-GA, CS-UF and CS-TF. Crosslinking reaction of CS membranes was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Membrane rigidity and compactness were studied by the differential scanning calorimetry. The surface morphology of CS membranes was characterized by scanning electron microscopy. The sorption behaviour with respect to contact time, initial pH and initial metal ion concentration were investigated. The maximum adsorption capacity of CS-GA, CS-UF and CS-TF sorbents was found to be 1.03, 1.2 and 1.18 mM/g for $Cu^{2+}$ and 1.48, 1.55 and 2.18 mM/g for $Ni^{2+}$ respectively. Swelling experiments have been performed on the membrane networks at $30^{\circ}C$. Desorption studies were performed in acid media and EDTA and it was found that the membranes are reusable for the metal ion removal for three cycles. The developed membranes could be successfully used for the separation of $Cu^{2+}$ and $Ni^{2+}$ metal ions from aqueous solutions.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.21-28
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• 2023

The electromembrane process, which has advantages such as scalability, sustainability, and eco-friendliness, is used in renewable energy fields such as fuel cells and reverse electrodialysis power generation. Most of the research to visualize the internal flow in the electromembrane process has mainly been conducted on heterogeneous ion exchange membranes, because of the non-uniform swelling characteristics of the homogeneous membrane. In this study, we successfully visualize the electro-convective vortices near the Nafion homogeneous membrane in PDMS-based microfluidic devices. To reinforce the mechanical rigidity and minimize the non-uniform swelling characteristics of the homogeneous membrane, a newly developed swelling supporter was additionally adapted to the Nafion membrane. Thus, a clear image of electroconvective vortices near the Nafion membrane could be obtained and visualized. As a result, we observed that the heterogeneous membrane has relatively stronger electroconvective vortices compared to the Nafion homogeneous membranes. Regarding electrical response, the Nafion membrane has a higher limiting current and less overlimiting current compared to the heterogeneous membrane. Based on our visualization, it is assumed that the heterogeneous membrane has more activated electroconvective vortices, which lower electrical resistance in the overlimiting current regime. We anticipate that this work can contribute to the fundamental understanding of the ion transport characteristics depending on the homogeneity of ion exchange membranes.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.120-130
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• 2023

PEMFC has high potential for future development due to its high energy density, eco-friendliness, and high energy efficiency. When it becomes small, light and flexible, it can be competitive as an energy source for portable devices or flexible electronic devices. However, the use of hard and heavy materials for structural rigidity and uniform contact pressure transmission has become an obstacle to reducing the weight and flexibility of PEMFCs. This review intends to provide an example of the application of a new structure and material for lightweight and flexibility. As a lightweight PEMFC, a tubular design is presented and structural advantages through numerical modeling are explained. Manufacturing methods to realize the structural advantages and possibilities of tubular PEMFCs are discussed. In addition, the materials and manufacturing processes used to fabricate lightweight and flexible PEMFCs are described and factors affecting performance are analyzed. Strategies and structural improvements of light and flexible movements are discussed according to the component parts.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.279-304
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• 2023

Polybenzimidazole (PBI) based membranes have evolved in literature as a popular membrane material for various applications in the past two decades because of their high temperature thermal durability, strong mechanical and tensile properties, high glass transition temperature (T_g), ion conduction ability at elevated temperature (up to 200℃), oxidative or chemical durability along with robust network like structural rigidity, which make PBI membranes suitable for various potential applications in chemically challenging environments. Ion conducting PBI based membranes have been extensively utilized in high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells (HT-PEMFC). In addition, PBI based membranes have been vastly utilized for the development of gas separation membranes and organic solvent nanofiltration (OSN) membranes for their unique characteristics. This review will cover the recent progress and application of various types of flat sheet PBI based membranes for HT-PEMFC, gas separation and OSN application.

• Journal of Applied Biological Chemistry
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• v.64 no.4
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• pp.369-374
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• 2021

Brown blotch disease of oyster mushrooms is caused by tolaasin and its analog peptide toxins which are produced by Pseudomonas tolaasii. Tolaasin peptides form pores in the plasma membrane and destroy the fruiting body structure of mushroom. Lysis of red blood cells, hemolysis, can be occurred by cytotoxic activity of tolaasin. The hemolytic activity of tolaasin is inhibited by metal ions, such as Zn²⁺ and Ni²⁺. When Gadolinium ion was added, a biphasic effect was observed on tolaasin-induced hemolysis, an increase in hemolysis at submillimolar concentrations and an inhibition at millimolar concentrations. The mechanism of gadolinium ion-induced inhibition of tolaasin activity may not be similar to those of the inhibitions by other metal ions. Since gadolinium ion has been reported to change a lateral pressure of lipid membrane by binding to the negative charges of membrane lipids, it may not directly work on the tolaasin channel gating, but rather decrease the stability of tolaasin channel by increasing firmness of membrane.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.456-461
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• 2003

A fuel cell is an electrochemical device in which the energy of a chemical reaction is converted directly into electricity. By combining hydrogen fuel with oxygen from air, electricity is formed, without combustion of any form. Water and heat are the only by-products when hydrogen is used as the fuel source. Fuel cell stack consists of multi-layered unit cells. A unit cell consists of MEA and bipolar plates. The end plate of fuel cell stack should give a uniform distributed pressure to multi unit cell layers so as to reduce the contact resistance and to prevent the leakage of reactant gases and the damage of multi layer components. The current end plate is redundantly large and heavy. It makes the power per unit volume reduced. Topology optimization of end plate is conducted for mass reduction and enhancement of bending rigidity. The evaluation of the current design and the recommendation for the future design is remarked.

• Proceedings of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute Conference
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• 1998.04a
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• pp.317-324
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• 1998

A nonlinear anile element formulation of flat shell elements with drilling d.o.f, is presented for the geometrical nonlinear analysis of thin-walled structures. The shell element to be applied in finite element analysis was developed by combining a membrane element named as CLM with drilling rotation d.o.f, and plate bending element. The combined shell element possesses six degrees of freedom per node. The element showed the excellent performance in the linear analysis of the folded plate structures, in which the normal rotational rigidity of folded plates is considered, therefore, using this element geometrical nonlinear analysis of those structures is fulfilled in this study. An incremental total Larangian approach is adopted through out in which displacements are referred to the original configuration. Comparing the results with those of other researches shows the performance of this element and a folded plate structure is analyzed as an example.

• 연구논문집
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• s.22
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• pp.65-74
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• 1992

This paper aims at calculating optimum design dimensions to minimize the weight satisfied strain and stress intensity of the frame while loading maximum weight into a mechanical press in the static condition. Analysis of the frame was carried out by using the FEM, then the optimum condition was obtained by using these data. As modeling in the finite element analysis has great impact on the reliablity of analysis results, the analyzed object was selected a 150-ton mechanical press of J Company, the part little affected to structural rigidity was simplified, the load condition was considered in the only maximum load, the boundary condition was used by giving symmetric displacement due to symmetric boundary condition, the finite element was applied a linear membrane element. An intermediate processor program applied the normal ANSYS to analyze finite elements was developed, and the design sensitivity was calculated. This program was applied to the optimum design.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.69-70
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• 1997

Polyimides and related polymers, when synthesized from aromatic monomers, have generally rigid chain structures resulting in a low gas permeability. The rigidity of polymer chains reduces the segmental motion of chains and works as a good barrier against gas transport. To overcome the limit of use as materials of gas separation membranes due to low gas permeability, block copolymers with the incorporation of flexible segments like siloxane linkage and ether linkage have been studied. These block copolymers have microphase-separated structures composed of microdomains of flexible poly(dimethylsiloxane) or polyether segments and of rigid polyimides segments. In case of rigid-flexible block copolymers, the characteristics of both phases for gas permeation are of great difference. The permeation of gas molecules occurs favorably through microdomains of flexible segments, whereas those of rigid segments hinder the permeation of gas molecules. Accordingly the increase of content of flexible segments in a rigid polymer matrix will increase the gas permeability of the membrane linearly. However, this prediction does not satisfy enough many experimental results and in particular the drastic increase of the permeability is observed in a certain volume fraction. It was proposed that the gas transport mechanism is dominated by diffusion rather than gas solubility in a certain content of flexible phase if solution-diffusion mechanism is adopted. However, the transition from solubility-dependent to diffusion-dependent cannot be explained by the understanding of mechanism itself. Therefore, we consider an effective chemical path which permeable phase can form in a microheterogenous medium, and percolation concept is introduced to describe the permeability transition at near threshold where for the first time a percolation path occurs. The volume fraction of both phases is defined as V$_{\alpha}$ and V$_{\beta}$ in block copolymers, and the volume of $\beta$ phase in the threshold forming geometrically a traversing channel is defined as V$_{\betac}$. The formation mechanism of shortest chemical channel is schematically depicted in Fig. 1.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.420-432
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• 2020

Random copolymers made of both 'polymer of intrinsic microporosity (PIM-1)' and Ellagic acid were prepared for the first time by a facile one-step polycondensation reaction. By combining the highly porous and contorted structure of PIM (polymers with intrinsic microporosity) and flat-type hydrophilic ellagic acid, the membranes obtained from these random copolymers [(PIM-co-EA)-x] showed high CO2 permeability (> 4516 Barrer) with high CO2/N2 (> 23~26) and CO2/CH4 (> 18~19) selectivity, that surpassed the Robeson upper bound (2008) for both pairs of the gas mixture. Incorporation of flat-type ellagic acid into the PIM-1 not only enhances the gas permeability by disturbing the kinked structure of PIM-1 but also increases the selectivity of CO2 over N2 and CH4, due to an increase of rigidity and polarity in the resultant copolymer membranes.