• Carbon letters
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.31-40
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• 2005

The carbon nanofibers (CNFs) were synthesized through the catalytic decomposition of hydrocarbons in a quartz tube reactor. The CNFs prepared from $C_3H_8$ at $550^{\circ}C$ was selected as the purification sample due to the higher content of impurity than that prepared from other conditions. In this study, we carried out the purification of CNFs by oxidation in air or carbon dioxide after acid treatment, and investigated the influence of purification parameters such as kind of acid, concentration, oxidation time, and oxidation temperature on the structure of CNFs. The metal catalysts could be easily eliminated from the prepared CNFs by liquid phase purification with various acids and it was verified by ICP analysis, in which, for example, Ni content decreased from 2.51% to 0.18% with 8% nitric acid. However, the particulate carbon and heterogeneous fibers were not removed from the prepared CNFs by thermal oxidation in air and carbon dioxide. This result can be explained by that the direction of graphene sheet in CNFs is vertical to the fiber axis and the CNFs are oxidized at about the similar rate with the impurity carbon.

• 한국태양에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2012.03a
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• pp.406-409
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• 2012

Recently, enormous research efforts have been focused on the development of non-precious catalysts to replace Pt for electrocatalytic oxygen reduction reaction (ORR), and to reduce the cost of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs). In recent years, heteroatom (N, B, and P) doped carbon nanostructures have been received enormous importance as a non-precious electrode materials for oxygen reduction. Doping of foreign atom into carbon is able to modify electronic properties of carbon materials. In this study, nitrogen and boron doped carbon nanostructures were synthesized by using a facile and cost-effective thermal annealing route and prepared nanostructures were used as a non-precious electrocatalysts for the ORR in alkaline electrolyte. The nitrogen doped carbon nanocapsules (NCNCs) exhibited higher activity than that of a commercial Pt/C catalyst, excellent stability and resistance to methanol oxidation. The boron-doped carbon nanostructure (BC) prepared at $900^{\circ}C$ showed higher ORR activity than BCs prepared lower temperature (800, $700^{\circ}C$). The heteroatom doped carbon nanomaterials could be promising candidates as a metal-free catalysts for ORR in the PEMFCs.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.15-21
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• 1997

Carbon molecular sieve (CMS) membranes were synthesized by the pyrolysis of polymeric precursors. The CMS materials had oxygen-nitrogen selectivities much higher than those observed for the polymeric precursors. Typically molecular sieving materials have diffusion selectivities much higher than polymeric materials. This has been identified as a result of higher entropic selectivity of the molecular sieving materials. A study of the development of molecular sieving properties as the polymeric precursor is pyrolyzed into a CMS material will offer us an insight into polymeric molecular structures needed for enhanced entropic selectivity membrane materials.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.406-420
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• 1995

Polyhydroxyalkanoates[PHAs] are the polyester of hydroxyalkanoates(HAs) synthesized by numerous bacteria as an intracellular carbon and energy storage compound and accumulated as granules in the cytoplasm of the cells under unbalanced growth condition in the presence of excess carbon source. Even though PHAs have been recognized as good candidates for biodegradable plastics, their high price compared with conventional plastics has limited their use in a wide mange of applications. To reduce the high production cost of PHAs, many group of scientists have devoted much efforts to improve productivity by employing various microorganisms and by developing efficient culture techniques. The strategies of producing PHAs to a high concentration with high productivity and their potential applications are reviewed.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.182-188
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• 2018

Nitrogen (N)-doped protein-based carbon as platinum (Pt) catalyst supports from tofu for oxygen reduction reactions are synthesized using a carbonization and reduction method. We successfully prepare 5 wt% Pt@N-doped protein-based carbon, 10 wt% Pt@N-doped protein-based carbon, and 20 wt% Pt@N-doped protein-based carbon. The morphology and structure of the samples are characterized by field emission scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron micro scopy, and crystllinities and chemical bonding are identified using X-ray diffraction and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The oxygen reduction reaction are measured using a linear sweep voltammogram and cyclic voltammetry. Among the samples, 10 wt% Pt@N-doped protein-based carbon exhibits exellent electrochemical performance with a high onset potential of 0.62 V, a high $E_{1/2}$ of 0.55 V, and a low ${\Delta}E_{1/2}=0.32mV$. Specifically, as compared to the commercial Pt/C, the 10 wt% Pt@N-doped protein-based carbon had a similar oxygen reduction reaction perfomance and improved electrochemical stability.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.423-430
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• 2013

Carbon coils could be synthesized using $C_2H_2/H_2$ as source gases and $SF_6$ as an incorporated additive gas under thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) system. Prior to the carbon coils deposition reaction, two kinds of samples having different combination of Ni catalyst and substrate were employed, namely, a commercially-made $Al_2O_3$ ceramic boat with Ni powders and a commercially-made $Al_2O_3$ substrate with Ni layer. By using a commercially-made $Al_2O_3$ ceramic boat, the synthesis of carbon coils could be enhanced as much as 10 times higher than that of $Al_2O_3$ substrate. Furthermore, the dominant formation of the microsized carbon coils could be obtained by using $Al_2O_3$ ceramic boat. The surface roughness of the supporting substrate of $Al_2O_3$ ceramic boat was understood to be associated with the large scale synthesis of carbon coils as well as the dominant formation of the larger-sized, namely the microsized carbon coils.

• Carbon letters
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.159-163
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• 2004

The polymer-ceramic hybrid, known as 'ceramer', was synthesized by a sol-gel process by incorporating different amount of alkoxide as source of silicon in resorcinol-formaldehyde in presence of basic catalyst to get different percentage of silicon in ultimate carbonized composites. FTIR of the ceramer confirms that it is a network of Si-O-Si, Si-O-$CH_2$ and Si-OH type groups linked with benzene ring. Different amount of silicon in the ceramer exhibits varying temperature of thermal stability and lower coefficient of thermal expansion as compared to pure resorcinol-formaldehyde resin. The lower value of CTE in ceramer is due to existence of silica and resorcinol -formaldehyde in co-continuous phase. Unidirectional composites prepared with ceramer matrix and high-strength carbon fibers show lower value of flexural strength at polymer stage as compared to those prepared with resorcinol-formaldehyde resin. However, after heat treatment to $1450^{\circ}C$, the ceramer matrix composites show large improvement in the mechanical properties, i.e. with 7% silicon in the ceramer, the flexural strength is enhanced by 100% and flexural modulus value by 40% as compared to that of pure resorcinol-formaldehyde resin matrix composites.

• International Journal of Precision Engineering and Manufacturing
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.18-21
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• 2008

The study deals with the effects of parameters in the synthesis of carbon nanotubes in liquid nitrogen to find the most appropriate conditions such as electrical voltage and time that give carbon nanotubes with large volume and less proportion of impurity, which is a non-nanotubed carbon. The experiment employed the method of arc-discharge between graphite cathode and anode which are immersed in liquid nitrogen. The electrical DC current of 60A and 70A were applied with the time period ranging from 10 seconds to 25 seconds. It was found that the electrical current of 60A and 13 seconds arc-discharge time allowed the largest volume of carbon nanotubes generation. The longer time leads to more impurities around the carbon nanotubes. By the filtration of CNTs-suspended solution using 0.2 micrometers porous paper filter and the characterization using TEM, the carbon nanotubes synthesized in the study were approximately 25 layers multi-walled nanotubes with the average diameter of 18.2 nanometers.

• Carbon letters
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.133-141
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• 2004

The synthetic behaviors of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) by Fe/MgO catalysts were investigated in 0~90 wt.% range of MgO mixture ratios by catalytic chemical vapor deposition (CCVD) process. The CNTs were synthesized with 40 minutes of synthetic time, and 923 K of synthetic temperature using 0.1 L/min of ethylene gas and 1.0 L/min of hydrogen gas as synthetic and carrier gas, respectively. As the increase of synthetic temperatures and times, the diameters of CNTs become thicker. The carbon yield showed in a parabolic curve as MgO content increased and the maximum carbon yield was obtained at 30 wt.% of MgO. There were no obvious changes in the diameters of CNTs respect to the change of MgO content. Fe/MgO CNTs showed good crystalinity by High Resolution Transmission Electron microscope (HR-TEM) analysis. The behaviors of Fe/MgO CNTs have a tendency of depending on synthetic time and temperature rather than MgO content.

• Journal of Power System Engineering
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.94-99
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• 2017

Single walled carbon nanotubes were mixed with various metal powders by mechanical ball milling and sintered by spark plasma sintering processes. Two compositional (0.1 and 1 vol%) of the single walled carbon nanotubes were dispersed onto the pure aluminum, 5052 aluminum alloy, pure titanium, Ti6Al4Vanadium alloy, pure copper, and stainless steel 316L. Each composite powders were spark plasma sintered at $600^{\circ}C$ and well synthesized regardless of the matrices. Vickers hardness of the composite materials was measured and they exhibited higher values regardless of the carbon nanotubes composition than those of the pure materials. Moreover, single walled carbon nanotubes reinforced copper matrix composites showed highest enhancement between the other metal matrices system. We believe that low energy mechanical ball milling and spark plasma sintering processes are useful tool for fabricating of the carbon nanotubes-reinforced various metal matrices composite materials. The single walled carbon nanotubes-reinforced various metal matrices composite materials could be used as an engineering parts in many kind of industrial fields such as aviation, transportation and electro technologies etc. However, detail strengthening mechanism should be carefully investigated.