• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.28 no.11
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• pp.646-652
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• 2018

During a long-term operation of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs), the fuel cell performance may degrade due to severe agglomeration and dissolution of metal nanoparticles in the cathode. To enhance the electrochemical durability of metal catalysts and to prevent the particle agglomeration in PEMFC operation, this paper proposes a hybrid catalyst structure composed of PtCo alloy nanoparticles encapsulated by porous carbon layers. In the hybrid catalyst structure, the dissolution and migration of PtCo nanoparticles can be effectively prevented by protective carbon shells. In addition, $O_2$ can properly penetrate the porous carbon layers and react on the active Pt surface, which ensures high catalytic activity for the oxygen reduction reaction. Although the hybrid catalyst has a much smaller active surface area due to the carbon encapsulation compared to a commercial Pt catalyst without a carbon layer, it has a much higher specific activity and significantly improved durability than the Pt catalyst. Therefore, it is expected that the designed hybrid catalyst concept will provide an interesting strategy for development of high-performance fuel cell catalysts.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.29-35
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• 2016

It is important to uniformly supply the fuel gas into the reaction activity area in polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Recent studies have shown that the cell performance can be significantly improved by employing metal foam gas distributor as compared with the conventional bipolar plate types. The metal foam gas distributor has been reported to be more efficient to fuel transport. In this study, three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations have been performed to examine the effects of metal foam flow field design on the fuel supply to the reaction site. Darcy's law is used for the flow in the porous media. By solving additional advection equation for fluid particle trajectory, the gas transport has been visualized and examined for various geometrical configuration of metal foam gas distributor.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.15-26
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• 2015

In this study, porous metal (O.D. = 10 mm, length = 10 mm, 316 L SUS, Mott Corp.) and ${\alpha}$-alumina tube (O.D. = 10 mm, length = 50 mm, Pall, German) support was modified with suspension sols, which were consisted of $3{\sim}4{\mu}m$ and 150 nm size of ${\alpha}$-alumina particle in the water or silica-zirconia colloidal sol. The porous support was fabricated by dip coating method for 5 seconds with suspension of alumina particles. After drying at $100^{\circ}C$ for 1 h, it was calcined at $550^{\circ}C$ for 30 min. It was repeated several times in order to decrease big pore on support. The surface roughness and largest pore size on the porous support was decreased by increasing coating times with $3{\sim}4{\mu}m$ size of ${\alpha}$-alumina particle and alumina coating with 150 nm size of ${\alpha}$-alumina particle served as further smoothening the surface and decreasing the pore size of the substrate. And the silica-zirconia membranes were successfully prepared on the modified porous metal and ${\alpha}$-alumina supports, and showed hydrogen permeance in the range of $1.8-8.4{\times}10^{-4}mol{\cdot}m^{-2}{\cdot}s^{-1}{\cdot}Pa^{-1}$ and $3.3-5.0{\times}10^{-5}mol{\cdot}m^{-2}{\cdot}s^{-1}{\cdot}Pa^{-1}$, respectively.

• Clean Technology
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.178-184
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• 2023

Transition metal chalcogenides have garnered significant attention as anode materials for sodium-ion batteries due to their high theoretical capacity. Nevertheless, their practical application is impeded by their limited lifespan resulting from substantial volume expansion during cycling and their low electrical conductivity. To tackle these issues, this study devised a solution by synthesizing a nanostructured anode material composed of porous CNT (carbon nanotube) spheres and (Ni,Co)Se₂ nanocrystals. By employing spray pyrolysis and subsequent heat treatments, a porous-structured (Ni,Co)Se₂-CNT composite microsphere was successfully synthesized, and its electrochemical properties as an anode for sodium-ion batteries were evaluated. The synthesized (Ni,Co)Se₂-CNT microsphere possesses a porous structure due to the nanovoids that formed as a result of the decomposition of the polystyrene (PS) nanobeads during spray pyrolysis. This porous structure can effectively accommodate the volume expansion that occurs during repeated cycling, while the CNT scaffold enhances electronic conductivity. Consequently, the (Ni,Co)Se₂-CNT anode exhibited an initial discharge capacity of 698 mA h g^-1 and maintained a high discharge capacity of 400 mA h g^-1 after 100 cycles at a current density of 0.2 A g^-1.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.407.1-407.1
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• 2016

Electrochromism is defined as a phenomenon which involves persistently repeated change of optical properties between bleached state and colored state by simultaneous injection of electrons and ions, sufficient to induce an electrochemical redox process. Due to this feature, considerable progress has been made in the synthesis of electrochromic (EC) materials, improvements of EC properties in EC devices such as light shutter, smart window and variable reflectance mirrors etc. Among the variable EC materials, solid-state inorganics in particular, metal oxide semiconducting materials such as nickel oxide (NiO) have been investigated extensively. The NiO that is an anodic EC material is of special interest because of high color contrast ratio, large dynamic range and low material cost. The high performance EC devices should present the use of standard industrial production techniques to produce films with high coloration efficiency, rapid switching speed and robust reversibility. Generally, the color contrast and the optical switching speed increase drastically if high surface area is used. The structure of porous thin film provides a specific surface area and can facilitate a very short response time of the reaction between the surface and ions. The large variety of methods has been used to prepare the porous NiO thin films such as sol-gel process, chemical bath deposition and sputtering. Few studies have been reported on NiO thin films made by using sol-gel method. However, compared with dry process, wet processes that have the questions of the durability and the vestige of bleached state color limit the thin films practical use, especially when prepared by sol-gel method. In this study, we synthesis the porous NiO thin films on the fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) glass by using sputtering and anodizing method. Also we compared electrical and optical properties of NiO thin films prepared by sol gel. The porous structure is promised to be helpful to the properties enhancement of the EC devices.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.9 no.7
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• pp.1047-1052
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• 1998

The porous alumina membrane was prepared from aluminum metal(99.8%) by anodic oxidation using DC power supply of constant current mode in aqueous solution of sulfuric, oxalic, phosphoric and chromic acid. Pore size and distribution, membrane thickness, morphology and crystal structure were examined with several anodizing conditions : reaction temperature, electrolyte concentration, current density and electrolyte type. It was found that ultrafiltration membrane was fabricated in electrolyte of sulfuric, and oxalic acid. On the other hand, microfiltration membrane was fabricated in electrolyte of phosphoric, and chromic acid. Also, it was shown that crystal structure of porous alumina membrane prepared in sulfuric, oxalic, and phosphoric acid was amorphous, whereas porous alumina membrane prepared in chromic acid had ${\gamma}$ type of crystal structure.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.55-60
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• 2009

Porous silicon film is fabricated by electrochemical etching in a chemical mixture of HF and ethanol. Effects of Si type, Si resistivity, ultrasonic frequency, current density and etching time on surface morphology of PS film were studied. Electrochemical etching in ultrasonic bath promotes the uniformity of porous layer of Si. Frequency of ultrasonic was increased from 40 kHz to 130 kHz to obtain uniform pores on the Si surface. When current density was higher, the sizes of pores were larger. The new etching cell using back contact metal and current shield help to overcome nonhomogeneity and current crowding effect, and then leads to fabricate uniform pores on the Si surface. The distribution of pore size shows no notable tendency with etching time.

• Steel and Composite Structures
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• v.43 no.6
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• pp.821-837
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• 2022

This research is devoted to study the effects of humidity and temperature on the bending behavior of functionally graded (FG) ceramic-metal porous plates resting on Pasternak elastic foundation using a quasi-3D hyperbolic shear deformation theory developed recently. The present plate theory with only four unknowns, takes into account both transverse shear and normal deformations and satisfies the zero traction boundary conditions on the surfaces of the functionally graded plate without using shear correction factors. Material properties of porous FG plate are defined by rule of the mixture with an additional term of porosity in the through-thickness direction. The governing differential equations are obtained using the "principle of virtual work". Analytically, the Navier method is used to solve the equations that govern a simply supported FG porous plate. The obtained results are checked by comparing the results determined for the perfect and imperfect FG plates with those available in the scientific literature. Effects due to material index, porosity factors, moisture and thermal loads, foundation rigidities, geometric ratios on the FG porous plate are all examined. Finally, this research will help us to design advanced functionally graded materials to ensure better durability and efficiency for hygro-thermal environments.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.76 no.3
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• pp.413-420
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• 2020

Considering inverse cotangential shear strain function, the present paper studies nonlinear stability of nonlocal higher-order refined beams made of metal foams based on Chebyshev-Ritz method. Based on inverse cotangential beam model, it is feasible to incorporate shear deformations needless of shear correction factor. Metal foam is supposed to contain different distributions of pores across the beam thickness. Also, presented Chebyshev-Ritz method can provide a unified solution for considering various boundary conditions based on simply-supported and clamped edges. Nonlinear effects have been included based upon von-karman's assumption and nonlinear elastic foundation. The buckling curves are shown to be affected by pore distribution, geometric imperfection of the beam, nonlocal scale factor, foundation and geometrical factors.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.23-29
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• 2007

Pitch-coated anatase $TiO_2$ typed was prepared by $CCl_4$ solvent mixing method with different mixing ratios. Since the carbon layers derived from pitch on the $TiO_2$ particles were porous, the pitch-coated $TiO_2$ sample series showed a good adsorptivity and photo decomposition activity. The BET surface area for the carbon layer in the sample increases to increasing with pitch contents. The SEM results present to the characterization of porous texture on the pitch-coated $TiO_2$ sample and pitch distributions on the surfaces for all the materials used. From XRD data a weak and broad carbon peak of graphene with pristine anatase peaks were observed in the X-ray diffraction patterns for the pitch-coated $TiO_2$. The EDX spectra show the presence of C, O and S with strong Ti peaks. Most of these samples are richer in carbon and major Ti metal than any other elements. Finally, the excellent photocatalytic activity of pitch-coated $TiO_2$ with slope relationship between relative concentration of MB ($c/c_o$) and t could be attributed to the homogeneous coated pitch on the external surface by $CCl_4$ solvent method.