• Journal of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.66 no.3
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• pp.209-217
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• 2022

We have developed photosensitive electrochromic smart windows that does not require any transparent conducting oxide (TCO) substrate. In our previous study, we demonstrated that a flexible film-type device made with a low temperature curing WO₃ sol and TiO₂ sol could show a reversible and rapid switching between colored and bleached state via incorporation of platinum catalysts on the surface of WO₃ layer. However, when these devices were exposed to sunlight over 4 hour, it was confirmed that they did not return to fully bleached state in the darkened state due to their overcoloring process. In this study, we added 4-hydroxy-(2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidin-1-yl)oxyl (TEMPOL) as an additive to the electrolyte of photosensitive electrochromic device to effectively prevent the undesired overcoloring process. The resulting device with TEMPOL indeed did not undergo excessive coloration and showed great reversibility even after being exposed to sunlight for over 4 hours. Various concentrations of TEMPOL were applied to compare changes in the visible transmittance and coloring/bleaching kinetics of devices. In terms of energetic point of view, we proposed a plausible mechanism of TEMPOL to prevent excessive coloration.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.4
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• pp.517-522
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• 2023

A chemical/mechanical durability test of polymer membrane evaluation method is used in which air and hydrogen are supplied to the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) and wet/dry is repeated in the open circuit voltage (OCV) state. In this protocol, when wet/dry is repeated, voltage increase/decrease is repeated, resulting in electrode degradation. When the membrane durability is excellent, the number of voltage changes increases and the evaluation is terminated due to electrode degradation, which may cause a problem that the original purpose of membrane durability evaluation cannot be performed. In this study, the same protocol as the department of energy (DOE) was used, but oxygen was used instead of air as the cathode gas, and the wet/dry time and flow rate were also increased to increase the chemical/mechanical degradation rate of the membrane, thereby shortening the durability evaluation time of the membrane to improve these problems. The durability test of the Nafion 211 membrane electrode assembly (MEA) was completed after 2,300 cycles by increasing the acceleration by 2.6 times using oxygen instead of air. This protocol also accelerated degradation of the membrane and accelerated degradation of the electrode catalyst, which also had the advantage of simultaneously evaluating the durability of the membrane and the electrode.