• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.310-317
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• 2016

Lithium ion secondary battery (LISB) is an energy conversion system operated via charging-discharging cycle based on Lithium ion migration. LISB has a lot of advantages such as high energy density, low self-discharge rate, and a relatively high lifetime. Recently, increasing demands of electric vehicles have been encouraging the development of LISB with high capacity. Unfortunately, it causes some critical safety issues. It includes dendrite formation on negative electrode, resulting in electric shortage problems and battery explosion. Also, the elevated temperatures occurred during the LISB operation induces thermal shrinkage of polyolefin (e.g., polyethylene and polypropylene) separators. Consequently, the low thermal stability leads to decay of LISB performances and the reduction of lifetime. In this study, sulfonated poly (arylene ether sulfone) (SPAES) random copolymers were used as key materials to prepare polyolefin pore-filling separator. The resulting separators were evaluated in the term of metal ion chelation capability associated with dendrite formation, $Li^+$ ion conductivity and thermal durability.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.16-21
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• 2008

The key component of a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is the membrane electrode assembly (MEA), which comprises a polymer electrolyte membrane and catalyst layers (anode and cathode electrode). Generally the catalyst layer is coated on the porous electrode supporter (e.g. carbon paper or cloth) using various coating methods such as brushing, decal transfer, spray coating and screen printing methods. However, these methods were disadvantageous in terms of the uniformity of catalyst layer thickness, catalyst loss, and coating time. In this work, we used bar-coating method which can prepare the catalyst layer with uniform thickness for MEA of DMFC. The surface and cross-section morphologies of the catalyst layers were observed by SEM. The performances and resistance of the MEAs were investigated through a single cell evaluation and impedance analyzer.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.287-294
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• 2015

Photovoltaic (PV) modules are environmentally friendly energy-conversion devices to generate electricity via the photovoltaic effect of semiconductors on solar energy. One of key elements in PV modules is "Backsheet," a multi-layered film to protect the devices from a variety of chemicals including water vapor. A representative Backsheet is composed of polyvinyl fluoride (PVF) and poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET). PVF is relatively expensive, while showing excellent resistance to chemical attacks. Thus, it is necessary to develop alternatives which can lower its high production cost and guarantee lifetime applicable to practical PV modules at the same time. In this study, PET films with certain levels of crystallinity were utilized instead of PVF. Since it is well known that PET is suffering from trans-esterification and hydrolysis under a wide pH range, it is needed to understand decomposition behavior of the PET films under PV operation conditions. To evaluate their chemical decomposition behavior within a short period of times, accelerated decomposition test protocol is developed. Moreover, electrochemical long-term performances of the PV module employing the PET-based Backsheet are investigated to prove the efficacy of the proposed concept.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.92-103
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• 2017

In this study, electrochemical performance of the hydrophilized separator for the lithium ion battery is studied. The polyolefin based material used as the separator for the lithium ion battery is hydrophobic, and the electrolytic solution using a carbonate-based organic solvent is hydrophilic. Therefore, the polyolefin separator is hydrophilized using various hydrophilic polymers because lithium ion battery uses an aqueous electrolyte solution. In order to evaluate change of the coated separator, the performances of separator in terms of surface morphology, porosity and the wettability are investigated. Finally, the resistance and the ionic conductivity of separator coated with lithium ion are measured to evaluate the performance of lithium ion battery. Separator coated with PMVE shows good hydrophilicity and excellent ionic conductivity because the porosity of the separator is maintained. We can confirm that this property makes potential candidates for lithium ion battery.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.34 no.10
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• pp.885-891
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• 2010

Thermal management is important for enhancing the performance and durability of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and is taken into account in the design of PEMFCs. In general, cooling pates with circulating liquid coolant (water) are inserted between several unit cells to exhaust the reaction heat from PEMFCs. In this study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed to characterize the uniform cooling performance of parallel multipass serpentine flow fields (MPSFFs) that were used as coolant flow channels in PEMFCs. The cooling performances of conventional serpentine and parallel flow fields were also evaluated for the purpose of comparison. The CFD results showed that the use of parallel MPSFFs can help reduce the temperature nonuniformity, and thus, can favorably enhance the performance and durability of PEMFCs.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.56 no.1
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• pp.56-60
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• 2018

There have been a lot of study to improve the performance of membrane filters as the removal of particulate matter has been of great interest due to the negative effects. Among the membrane fabrication techniques, the electrospinning technique is the most promising because it can produce uniform fibers ranging from nano to micrometer size. The electrospun membranes will greatly improve the filtration performance due to the high ratio of surface area to volume and the high porosity. In the present study, polystyrene (PS) and cellulose acetate (CA) polymers were used to produce the membranes with carbon nanotube (CNT), showing the filtration performances were improved with the optimal amounts of CNT.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.253-260
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• 2024

Proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE) is an efficient method for utilizing renewable energy sources such as wind and solar powers to produce green hydrogen. For PEMWE powered by renewable energy sources, its durability is a crucial factor in its performance since irregular and fluctuating characteristics of renewable energy sources, especially for wind power, can deteriorate the stability of PEMWE. Triangular voltage cycle is well able to simulate fluctuating wind power, but its effect on the durability has not been investigated extensively. In this study, the performance degradation of the PEMWE cell operated with the triangular voltage cycling was investigated at different ramping rates. The measured current responses during the cycling gradually decreased for both ramping rates, and I-V curve measurements before and after the cycling confirmed the degradation of the performances of PEMWE. For both measurements, the degradation rate was larger for 300 mV s^-1 than 30 mV s^-1, and they were determined as 0.36 and 1.26 mV h^-1 (at the current density of 2 A cm^-2) at the ramping rates of 30 and 300 mV s^-1, respectively. The comparison with other studies on triangular voltage cycling also indicate that an increase in the ramping rate accelerates the deterioration of the PEMWE performance. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and transmission electron microscopy results showed that the Ir catalyst was oxidized and did not dissolve during the voltage cycling. This study suggests that the ramping rate of the triangular voltage cycling is an important factor for the evaluation of the durability of PEMWE cells.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.487-498
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• 2017

In this study, pervaporation performances of water/methanol and water/butanol mixture were evaluated using zeolite 4A membranes manufacutred by FINETECH by experimental works and numerical modeling. Permeation and separation characteristics, such as flux and separation factor, were analyzed by gas chromatography (TCD) and liquid nitrogen traps. Experiments have shown that water is selectively separated from a mixture of water and methanol (separation factor up to approximately 250) and water and butanol (separation factor up to approximately 1,500). Generalized Maxwell Stefan (GMS) theory was implemented to predict pervaporation behaviors of water/alcohol mixtures and diffusional coefficients of zeolite layer were obtained through parameter estimation using $MATLAB^{(R)}$ optimization toolbox. Since the pore size of zeolite 4A are much larger than kinetic diameter of water molecules and smaller than those of methanol and butanol, zeolite 4A membranes can be applied to in situ water removal process such as membrane reactors or hybrid reaction-dehydration process.

• Proceedings of the Korea Concrete Institute Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.367-372
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• 2002

The waterproofing systems of concrete bridge deck are installed under the complex circumstances, such as traffic loading, weather, and the condition of the deck concrete. For assuring the effectiveness of waterproofing system, the materials and the construction method and timing ought to be suitably selected with the procedures of waterproofing and the system has to ensure the economical performances. First of all, we discussed whether the quality and performance criteria for highway bridge deck are resonable or not through the investigation of domestic and foreign criteria. The basic properties of waterproofing membranes on market and the performance of waterproofing systems of concrete bridge deck have also been investigated in the view of the damages frequently reported from job site. In this way, the causes and measures of damages, the guidelines of design, construction, quality control, and maintenance, the test methods and criteria of membranes and waterproofing system, are proposed.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.115-126
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• 2016

In this study, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis was conducted to investigate the flow pattern and to find the occurrence of dead zones in an existing capacitive deionization (CDI) cell. Newly designed cells-specifically designed to avoid dead zones-were analyzed by CFD in accordance with the flow rates of 15, 25 and 35 ml/min. Next, the separation performances between the existing and newly designed cell were compared by conducting CDI experiments in terms of salt removal efficiency at the same flow rates. Then, the computational and experimental results were compared to each other. The salt removal efficiencies of the hexagon flow channel 1 (HFC1) and hexagon flow channel 2 (HFC2) were increased 88-124% at 15 ml/min and 49-50% at 25 ml/min, respectively. There was no difference between the existing cell and the foursquare flow cell (FFC) at 35 ml/min.