• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.237-245
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• 2021

Atomic layer deposition (ALD) enhances the stability of cathode materials via surface modification. Previous studies have demonstrated that an Ni-rich cathode, such as LiNi_0.8Co_0.1Mn_0.1O₂, is a promising candidate owing to its high capacity, but is limited by poor cycle stability. In this study, to enhance the stability of the Ni-rich cathode, synthesized LiNi_0.8Co_0.1Mn_0.1O₂ was coated with Al₂O₃ using ALD. Thus, the surface-modified cathode exhibited enhanced stability by protecting the interface from Ni-O formation during the cycling process. The coated LiNi_0.8Co_0.1Mn_0.1O₂ exhibited a capacity of 176 mAh g^-1 at 1 C and retained up to 72% of the initial capacity after 100 cycles within a range of 2.8-4.3 V (vs Li/Li⁺. In contrast, pristine LiNi_0.8Co_0.1Mn_0.1O₂ presented only 58% of capacity retention after 100 cycles with an initial capacity of 173 mAh g^-1. Improved cyclability may be a result of the ALD coating, which physically protects the electrode by modifying the interface, and prevents degradation by resisting side reactions that result in capacity decay. The electrochemical impedance spectra and structural and morphological analysis performed using electron microscopy and X-ray techniques establish the surface enhancement resulting from the aforementioned strategy.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.252-261
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• 2023

Glucose detection is particularly important for clinical diagnosis and personal prevention and control. Herein, the smartphone-based amperometric glucose sensors were constructed using the NiS/CuS nanorods (NRs) as sensing electrodes. The NiS/CuS NRs were prepared through a facile hydrothermal process accompanied by the subsequent vulcanization treatment. The morphological and structural properties of NiS/CuS NRs were characterized with SEM, EDS, XRD, and XPS. Electrochemical measurements including cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy display that NiS/CuS NRs can act as highly efficient electrocatalyst for glucose detection. The NiS/CuS NRs electrodes present a wide detection range of 1-8000 µM for glucose sensing with the sensitivity of 956.38 µA·mM^-1·cm^-2. The detection limit was 0.35 µM (S/N=3). When employed in smartphone-based glucose sensing device, they also display a high sensitivity of 738.09 µA·mM^-1·cm^-2 and low detection limit of 1.67 µM. Moreover, the smartphone-based glucose sensing device also presents favorable feasibility in determination of glucose in serum samples with the recoveries ranging between 99.5 and 105.8%. The results may provide a promising viewpoint to design other new portable glucose sensors.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.1-8
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• 2019

The primary purposes of this study are to understand a fundamental effects of electro-deposition on reinforcing steel in saturated Ca(OH)2 electrolyte, and evaluate the corrosion rates of rebars under cyclic 3wt.%NaCl immersion and dry corrosion environment. The three cement mortar specimens with cover thickness 5, 10 and 30mm, were prepared in the experiment. To monitor the corrosion rates of rebars in mortar, the three cement mortar specimens were exposed to 110 wet-drying cycles(8-hour-immersion in 3wt.%NaCl and 16-hour-drying in a room temperature) in the laboratory. During the wet-dry cycles, the polarization resistance, Rp, and solution resistance, Rs, were continuously measured. The instantaneous corrosion rates of rebars on the effect of electro-depositing with sat. Ca(OH)2 electrolyte were estimated from obtained R-1p and degrees of wetness were estimated from Rs values. From the experimental results, the corrosion rates of rebars were greatly accelerated by wet/dry cycles. During the mortars exposed to drying condition, the large increases in the corrosion rates were showed at all rebar surfaces in three mortar specimen, attributed from the accelerated reduction rates of dissolved oxygen in drying process. However, the corrosion rates on rebar surface electrochemically deposited with sat. Ca(OH)2 electrolyte showed the clear decreases, caused by calcium deposits in the porous rust layer.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.97-108
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• 2008

The use of fly ash to replace a portion of cement has resulted significant savings in the cost of cement production. Fly ash blended cement concretes require a longer curing time and their early strength is low when compared to ordinary Portland cement(OPC) concrete. By adopting various activation techniques such as physical, thermal and chemical method, hydration of fly ash blended cement concrete was accelerated and thereby improved the corrosion-resistance of concrete. Concrete specimens prepared with 10-40% of activated fly ash replacement were evaluated for their open circuit potential measurements, weight loss measurements, impedance measurements, linear polarization measurements, water absorption test, rapid chloride ion penetration test and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) test and the results were compared with those for OPC concrete without fly ash. All the studies confirmed that up to a critical level of 20-30% replacement; activated fly ash cement improved the corrosion-resistance properties of concrete. It was also confirmed that the chemical activation of fly ash better results than the other methods of activation investigated in this study.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.32 no.6
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• pp.367-374
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• 2019

We investigate the effect of soil-structure interaction (SSI) on the response of LNG storage tanks to vertical seismic excitation depending on the type of foundation. An LNG storage tank with a diameter of 71 m on a clay layer with a thickness of 30 m upon bedrock, was selected as an example. The nonlinear behavior of the soil was considered in an equivalent linear method. Four types of foundation were considered, including shallow, piled raft, and pile foundations (surface and floating types). In addition, the effect of soil compaction within the group pile on the seismic response of the tank was investigated. KIESSI-3D, an analysis package in the frequency domain, was used to study the SSI and the stress in the outer tank was calculated. Based on an analysis of the numerical results, we arrived at three main conclusions: (1) for a shallow foundation, the vertical stress in the outer tank is less than the fixed base response due to the SSI effect; (2) for foundations supported by piles, the vertical stress can be greater than the fixed base stress due to the increase in the vertical impedance due to the piles and the decrease in radiation damping; and (3) soil compaction had a miniscule impact on the seismic response of the outer tank.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.1-13
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• 2022

This study aims to investigate the feasibility of the half-cell potential (HCP) measurements on the concrete surface for evaluation of corrosion rate (or corrosion levels) of reinforcing steel in concrete. A series of experimental study is performed to measure HCP (or corrosion potential, E_corr) and corrosion current density (i_corr) of reinforcing steel in concrete cube specimens, with a side length of 200 mm. Various corrosion levels in a range of 0% to 20% of the test specimens are accelerated by impressing current to the reinforcing steel in concrete immersed in 3.0 % NaCl solution. HCP is measured in accordance with ASTM C876-15, and corrosion current density is determined by using the Stern-Geary equation and measured polarization resistance measured by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). As a result, a numerical formula that relates HCP and i_corr in the test specimen is established by a regression analysis of the measured data in this study. It is observed that HCP is linearly correlated with log(i_corr) with a R² greater than 0.87, which is less affected by the experimental variables such as concrete mixture proportion, diameter of reinforcing steel and the amount of applied current in this study. These results exhibit that HCP measurements could be effective for evaluation of corrosion rate (or corrosion levels) of reinforcing steel in concrete in the case of exposed to a certain consistent environment.

• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.27-34
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• 2024

This study was conducted to examine the feasibility of using Fe-activated wood-derived biochar as a conductive filler for manufacturing cement-based strain sensor. To evaluate the compressive and electrical properties of cement composite with 3% Fe-activated biochar, three cubic specimens of size 50 x 50 x 50mm³ and three prismatic cement-based sensors of size 40 x 40 x 80mm³ were prepared respectively. The four-probe method of electrical resistance measurement was used for cement-based sensors. For cement-based sensors with FE-activated biochar, the conductive performance such as electrical resistance and impedance under different water content and repeated compression was investigated. Results showed that the fractional changes in the DC electrical resistivity of cement-based sensors increase with increasing time and the maximum fractional changes in the resistivity decrease with increasing the moisture contents during 900s. At moisture content of 7.5% range, the conductive performance of cement composite including 3% Fe-activated biochar as a conductive filler showed the most stable, while the strain detection ability tended to decrease somewhat as the repeated compressive stress increased between repeated compressive strain and fractional change in resistivity (FCR).

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.117-123
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• 2021

In this study, the composite was prepared by mixing SiOx, soft carbon, and carbon black and the electrochemical properties of lithium ion battery were investigated. The content of SiOx added to improve the capacity of the soft carbon anode material was varied to 0, 6, 8, 10, 20 wt%, and carbon black was added as a structural stabilizer for reducing the volume expansion of SiOx. The physical properties of prepared CB/SiOx/C composite were investigated through XRD, SEM, EDS and powder resistance analysis. In addition, the electrochemical properties of prepared composite were observed through the charge/discharge capacity, rate and impedance analysis of the lithium ion battery. The prepared CB/SiOx/C composite had an inner cavity capable of mitigating the volume expansion of SiOx by adding carbon black. The formed internal cavity showed a low initial efficiency when the SiOx content was less than 8 wt%, and low cycle stability when the content of SiOx was less than 20 wt%. The CB/SiOx/C composite containing 10 wt% of SiOx showed an initial discharge capacity of 537 mAh/g, a capacity retention rate of 88%, and a rate of 79 at 2C/0.1C. SiOx was added to improve the capacity of the soft carbon anode material, and carbon black was added as a structural stabilizer to buffer the volume change of SiOx. In order to use the CB/SiOx/C composite as a high-efficiency anode material, the mechanism of the optimal SiOx and the use of carbon black as a structural stabilizer was discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.86-93
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• 2014

Mesoporous tin oxide (meso-$SnO_2$) with 5 nm mesopore and well-aligned $SnO_2$ nanowire-bundles with 5~7 nm diameters were prepared by template synthesis method. In addition to meso-$SnO_2$, meso-$SnO_2$/$SiO_2$, which has almost the same structure as meso-$SnO_2$ including $SiO_2$ used as the template were prepared by the modification of template synthesis. X-ray diffraction, N2 adsorption-desorption isotherms, transmission electron microscopy observed structures of meso-$SnO_2$ and meso-$SnO_2$/$SiO_2$. Although the meso-$SnO_2$/$SiO_2$ showed some positive evidences to suppress the volume change of meso-$SnO_2$ through cyclic voltammogram, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and voltage profiles during cycling, its cycle life was not improved highly to address modified structural effects. Thus, further study might be done to control the nanostructure of meso-$SnO_2$/$SiO_2$ for enhanced cycle performance.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.45-50
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• 2015

In the present work, to increase the chemical stability of the lithium-ion-conducting ceramic electrolyte ($Li_{1+x+y}Al_xTi_{2-x}Si_yP_{3-y}O_{12}$, LATP) in the strong alkaline solution, the surface of LATP was modified by the nitridation process. The surface and structural properties of nitride LATP solid electrolyte were characterized by X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectrometer and scanning electron microscopy and ac-impedance spectroscopy, which were correlated to the chemical stability and electrochemical performance of LATP. The nitrided LATP immersed in the alkaline solution for 30 days exhibits the enhanced chemical stability than the pristine LATP. Moreover, a rechargeable hybrid Li-air battery constructed with the nitrided LATP solid electrolyte shows considerably reduced discharge-charge voltage gaps (enhanced the round-trip efficiency) in comparison to the cell constructed with pristine LATP, which indicate that the surface nitridation process can be the efficient way to improve the chemical stability of solid electrolyte in alkaline media.