• Korean Journal of Chemical Engineering
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• v.35 no.11
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• pp.2256-2268
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• 2018

Hydrophilic and hydrophobic polyethersulfone (PES)-zinc oxide (ZnO) sublayers were prepared by loading of ZnO nanoparticles into PES matrix. Both porosity and hydrophilicity of the hydrophilic sublayer were increased upon addition of hydrophilic ZnO, while these were decreased for the hydrophobic sublayer. In addition, the results demonstrated that the hydrophilic membrane exhibited smaller structural parameter (S value or S parameter or S), which is beneficial for improving pure water permeability and decreasing mass transfer resistance. In contrast, a higher S parameter was obtained for the hydrophobic membrane. With a 2 M NaCl as DS and DI water as FS, the pure water flux of hydrophilic TFN0.5 membrane was increased from $21.02L/m^2h$ to $30.06L/m^2h$ and decreased for hydrophobic TFN0.5 membrane to $14.98L/m^2h$, while the salt flux of hydrophilic membrane increased from $10.12g/m^2h$ to $17.31g/m^2h$ and decreased for hydrophobic TFN0.5 membrane to $3.12g/m^2h$. The increment in pure water permeability can be ascribed to reduction in S parameter, which resulted in reduced internal concentration polarization (ICP). The current study provides a feasible and low cost procedure to decrease the ICP in FO processes.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.143-149
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• 2022

Membrane distillation (MD) has emerged as a sustainable desalination technology to solve the water and energy problems faced by the modern society. In particular, the surface wetting properties of the membrane have been recognized as a key parameter to determine the performance of the MD system. In this study, a novel surface modification technique was developed to induce a Janus-type hydrophilic/hydrophobic layer on the membrane surface. The hydrophilic layer was created on a porous PVDF membrane by vapor phase polymerization of the pyrrole monomer, forming a thin coating of polypyrrole on the membrane walls. A rigid polymeric coating layer was created without compromising the membrane porosity. The hydrophilic coating was then followed by the in-situ growth of siloxane nanoparticles, where the condensation of organosilane provided quick loading of hydrophobic layers on the membrane surface. The composite layers of dual coatings allowed systematic control of the surface wettability of porous membranes. By the virtue of the photothermal property of the hydrophilic polypyrrole layer, the desalination performance of the coated membrane was tested in a solar MD system. The wetting properties of the dual-layer were further evaluated in a direct-contact MD module, exploring the potential of the Janus membrane structure for effective and low-energy desalination.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2003.07a
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• pp.133-135
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• 2003

The removal of dissolved oxygen(DO) from water was studied using a poly(vinyliene fluoride)(PVDF) hollow fiber membrane contactor(HFMC) with the vacuum degassing process(VDP), Asymmetric porous PVDF hollow fiber membranes (HFM) for membrane contactor were prepared by a wet phase inversion method. In spinning of these PVDF hollow fibers, dimethy lacetamide (DMAc), LiCl and pure water were used as a solvent, a pore-forming additive and internal/external coagulant, respectively. The characteristics of the structure(pore size, porosity etc.) of the prepared PVDF HFMs as a function of concentration of pore-forming additive in polymer dope solution were studied. Also, the removal efficiency of DO from water according to flow rates of water, using PVDF HFMC with VDP, was studied. The performance of the asymmetric porous PVDF HFMC and a symmetric porous PP HFMC commercialized were compared. As a result, the asymmetric porous PVDF HFMC showed higher removal efficiency of DO than that of a symmetric porous PP HFMC.

• 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.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.214-219
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• 2017

In this work, we fabricated PS-b-P4VP block copolymer membranes from self-assembly and non-solvent induced phase separation (SNIPS), which combines the block copolymer self-assembly and conventional NIPS process. While previous studies mostly focused on the fabrication of well-defined structures, we systematically examined various processing parameters such as polymer concentration, solvent evaporation duration, solvent composition, and humidity, to optimized the membrane structures. As a result, the morphology of PS-b-P4VP membranes was optimized at a certain polymer concentration in solution and composition of volatile solvent at low humidity conditions, resulting in SNIPS separation membranes with well-defined nanopores on the surface, 75% of membrane porosity, and 18% of surface porosity.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.8
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• pp.767-773
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• 2013

This study suggested the variations of porosity and gas permeability of gas diffusion layers (GDLs), which are easily deformed among the components of a highly compressed PEMFC stack. The volume change owing to compression was measured experimentally, and the variations in the porosity and gas permeability were estimated using correlations published in previous literature. The effect of polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) which is added to the GDLs to enhance water discharge was investigated on the variations of porosity and gas permeability. The gas permeability which strongly affects the mass transport through GDL, decreases sharply with increasing compression when the GDL has high PTFE loading. As a result, the mass transport through the pore network of GDL can be changed considerably according to the PTFE loading even with the same clamping force. The accuracy of modeling of transport phenomena through GDL can be improved due to the enhanced correlations developed based on the results of this study.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.341-347
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• 2013

Kaolin-based membranes with a pore size of 0.30-0.40 ${\mu}m$ were successfully prepared by a simple pressing route using low-cost starting materials, kaolin and sodium borate. The prepared green bodies were sintered at different temperatures ranging between 900 and $1200^{\circ}C$. The sintered membranes were characterized by X-ray diffraction, mercury porosimetry, scanning electron microscopy, and capillary flowmetry. It was observed that the porosity decreased with an increase in both the sintering temperature and the sodium borate content, whereas the flexural strength increased with an increase in both the sintering temperature and the sodium borate content. The air flow rate decreased with an increase in the sodium borate content. The typical porosity, flexural strength, and specific flow rate of the kaolin-based membrane sintered with 5 wt% sodium borate at $1100^{\circ}C$ were 37%, 19 MPa, and $1{\times}10^{-3}L/min/cm^2$, respectively, at a p of 30 psi.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.109-116
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• 2019

The mechanical deformation of a battery separator causes internal short-circuiting of the cathode - anode, which directly affects the explosion/ignition of batteries. To increase the mechanical properties of the separator fabricated by electro-spinning, use of a thermal pressing method is inevitable. Therefore, this research aims to maximize the mechanical strength of a porous separator by finding the proper thermal press temperatures given to Electro-spun Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibers. The different thermal press temperatures $25^{\circ}C$, $50^{\circ}C$, $75^{\circ}C$, and $100^{\circ}C$ were applied to the electro-spun fiber at 30 MPa pressure for one hour. The higher the temperature, the higher the resultant tensile strength; however, a higher temperature also lowered the strain and porosity. Thus, the membrane thermal pressed at $50^{\circ}C$ showed the best mechanical properties and the second highest porosity. Using the data, $50^{\circ}C$ was judged as the best thermal pressing temperature in terms of performance.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.38-43
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• 2018

Ceramic membrane has been widely used for water treatment due to its advantages of eco-friendly property and low energy consumption. However, high porosity of ceramic membrane higher than 40 % may cause a problem of strength, when it is applied to a water treatment module. In order to solve this problem, the strength of the membrane edge was improved by using the ceramic glaze. Four different glaze compositions for low temperature sintering was selected to minimize the deformation of the membrane microstructure. After coating with low temperature glaze, cracks were observed due to differences in thermal expansion coefficient between the membrane and glaze. Thus, the thermal expansion coefficient of glaze was controlled by addition of cordierite and petalite. As a results, the compressive strength of the ceramic membrane, which was coated with the optimized glaze composition, was increased from $27N/m^2$ to $117N/m^2$, indicating that the glaze coating can improve the disadvantages of the fragile ceramic membrane.

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.6 no.5
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• pp.423-437
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• 2015

Polyvinylidene fluoride/fullerene nanoparticle (PVDF/$C_{60}$) composite microfiltration (MF) membranes were fabricated by a non-solvent induced phase separation (NIPS) using N, N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc) as solvent and deionized water (DI) as coagulation solution. Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) was added to the casting solution to form membrane pores. $C_{60}$ was added in increments of 0.2% from 0.0% to 1.0% to produce six different membrane types: one pristine PVDF membrane type with no $C_{60}$ added as control, and five composite membrane types with varying $C_{60}$ concentrations of 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0%, respectively. The mechanical strength, morphology, pore size and distribution, hydrophilicity, surface property, permeation performance, and fouling resistance of the six membranes types were characterized using respective analytical methods. The results indicate that membranes containing $C_{60}$ have higher surface porosity and pore density than the pristine membrane. The presence of numerous pores on the membrane caused weaker mechanical strength, but the water flux of the composite membranes increased in spite of their smaller size. Initial flux and surface roughness reached the maximum point among the composite membranes when the $C_{60}$ concentration was 0.6 wt.%.