• Membrane Journal
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.395-408
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• 2020

Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have gained much attention as eco-friendly energy conversion devices without emission of environmental pollutant. Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) that can transfer proton from anode to cathode and also prevent fuel cross-over has been regarded as a key component of PEMFCs. Although perfluorinated polymer membranes such as Nafion® were already commercialized in PEMFCs, their high cost and toxic byproduct generated by degradation have still limited the wide spread of PEMFCs. To overcome these issues, development of hydrocarbon based PEMs have been studied. Incorporation of cross-linked structure into the hydrocarbon based PEM system has been reported to fabricate the PEMs showing both high proton conductivity and outstanding physicochemical stability. This study focused on the various cross-linking strategies to the preparation of cross-linked PEMs based on hydrocarbon polymers with ion conducting groups for application in PEMFCs.

• Journal of the Korean Applied Science and Technology
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.19-28
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• 2021

Corrosion is the degradation of metals by reaction with the environment. It is difficult to completely remove. Corrosion proceeds rapidly after the protective barrier is destroyed, and several reactions occur that alter the composition and properties of the metal surface and local environments, such as diffusion of metal cations into the matrix, the formation of oxides, and local pH changes. The study of corrosion of steel and iron is of theoretical and practical interest and is receiving considerable attention. Acid solutions, which are widely used in industrial pickling, acid descaling, cleaning and acidification of oil wells, require the use of corrosion inhibitors to suppress corrosion attacks on metallic materials. Physical removal of rust requires expensive special equipment, and chemical removal of it can cause corrosion or shorten the life of the metal. In this study, an eco-friendly rust cleaner was developed using cosmetics and food materials by applying the concept of perm reducing agent and chelate, and applied to remove rust from industrial and hot water pipes and various industrial devices. As a result, it was found that rust cleaners remove rust more effectively and safely compared to conventional treatment methods. At the same time, the rust removal efficiency was 1.75 to 2.5 times better for industrial piping and 1.56 to 2.2 times better for boiler hot water than conventional methods.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.149-158
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• 2021

Advances in food packaging play an important role in keeping food manufacturing and food supply safe. Food packaging facilitates the storage, handling, transportation and preservation of food, and also contributes to the minimization of food waste. On the other hand, food packaging materials have high production volumes, short usage times, and accelerate the occurrence of environmental problems related to waste. The circular economy has already been introduced to pursue sustainability through resource conservation and recycling, and to reduce waste and carbon emissions. By activating an eco-friendly economic system that minimizes resource depletion and environmental pollution, reducing, reusing, recycling and redesigning the goals of the circular economy will reduce the impact of food packaging on the environment. This review focused on the safety aspects of recycled food packaging as recycling is currently considered an important means of packaging waste management. Assessing the safety of recycled packaging is very important because recycling can increase the levels of potentially hazardous chemicals in packaging and in the food after they are migrated. Various food packaging materials such as plastic, paper and cardboard, aluminum, steel, and multi-material multi-layers packaging are commonly used, but only the recycling safety of plastic food packaging materials, which is the most used and has a significant increase in post-use problem, is discussed in this review.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.581-587
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• 2022

The leather industry generates a large amount of hazardous leather waste of various types every year. Among them, shaving scrap is difficult to recycle because it contains chromium ions. Many studies in recent years have shown that shaving scraps can be processed into various types of valuable products, such as adsorbent, filler, and poultry feed. In this study, collagen peptides were extracted from shaving scraps and structurally modified to be developed as new materials with improved physicochemical properties. First, the chromium ions contained in the shaving scraps were removed using a sodium hydroxide solution, and purified through concentration and low-temperature crystallization. The purified collagen peptide was used to prepare the powder using a spray dryer. The extracted collagen peptides were structurally modified by introducing double bonds by reacting with methacrylic anhydride (MAA), and the product was confirmed by ¹H NMR spectroscopy. Next, a copolymer was prepared by redox polymerization of the modified collagen peptide (MCP) and 2-ethylhexyl acrylate (2-EHA). The structure of the copolymer was qualitatively confirmed by FT-IR. In conclusion, this study confirmed that collagen peptides can be extracted from shaving scrap and converted into new eco-friendly materials through certain treatments.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.3-11
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• 2022

Owing to the increasing demand for electric vehicles (EVs), appropriate management of their waste batteries is required urgently for scrapped vehicles or for addressing battery aging. With respect to technological developments, data-driven diagnosis of waste EV batteries and management technologies have drawn increasing attention. Moreover, robot-based automatic dismantling technologies, which are seemingly interesting, require industrial verifications and linkages with future battery-related database systems. Among these, it is critical to develop and disseminate various advanced battery diagnosis and assessment techniques to improve the efficiency and safety/environment of the recirculation of waste batteries. Incorporation of lithium-related chemical substances in the public pollutant release and transfer register (PRTR) database as well as in-depth risk assessment of gas emissions in waste EV battery combustion and their relevant fire safety are some of the necessary steps. Further research and development thus are needed for optimizing the lifecycle management of waste batteries from various aspects related to data-based diagnosis/classification/disassembly processes as well as reuse/recycling and final disposal. The idea here is that the data should contribute to clean design and manufacturing to reduce the environmental burden and facilitate reuse/recycling in future production of EV batteries. Such optimization should also consider the future technological and market trends.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Gas
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.41-57
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• 2022

The global demand for carbon neutrality in response to climate change is in a situation where it is necessary to prepare countermeasures for carbon trade barriers for some countries, including Korea, which is classified as an export-led economic structure and greenhouse gas exporter. Therefore, digital transformation, which is one of the predictable ways for the carbon-neutral transition model to be applied, should be introduced early. By applying digital technology to industrial gas manufacturing facilities used in one of the major industries, high-tech manufacturing industry, and hydrogen gas facilities, which are emerging as eco-friendly energy, abnormal detection, and diagnosis services are provided with cloud-based predictive diagnosis monitoring technology including operating knowledge. Here are the trends. Small and medium-sized companies that are in the blind spot of carbon-neutral implementation by confirming the direction of abnormal diagnosis predictive monitoring through optimization, augmented reality technology, IoT and AI knowledge inference, etc., rather than simply monitoring real-time facility status It can be seen that it is possible to disseminate technologies such as consensus knowledge in the engineering domain and predictive diagnostic monitoring that match the economic feasibility and efficiency of the technology. It is hoped that it will be used as a way to seek countermeasures against carbon emission trade barriers based on the highest level of ICT technology.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.292-303
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• 2022

An eco-friendly energy conversion device without the emission of pollutants has gained much attention due to the rapid use of fossil fuels inducing carbon dioxide emissions ever since the first industrial revolution in the 18th century. Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) that can produce water during the reaction without the emission of carbon dioxide are promising devices for automotive and residential applications. As a key component of PEMFCs, polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs) need to have high proton conductivity and physicochemical stability during the operation. Currently, perfluorinated sulfonic acid-based PEMs (PFSA-PEMs) have been commercialized and utilized in PEMFC systems. Although the PFSA-PEMs are found to meet these criteria, there is an ongoing need to improve these further, to be useful in practical PEMFC operation. In addition, the well-known drawbacks of PFSA-PEMs including low glass transition temperature and high gas crossover need to be improved. Therefore, this review focused on recent trends in the development of high-performance PFSA-PEMs in three different ways. First, control of the side chain of PFSA copolymers can effectively improve the proton conductivity and thermal stability by increasing the ion exchange capacity and polymer crystallinity. Second, the development of composite-type PFSA-PEMs is an effective way to improve proton conductivity and physical stability by incorporating organic/inorganic additives. Finally, the incorporation of porous substrates is also a promising way to develop a thin pore-filling membrane showing low membrane resistance and outstanding durability.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.2
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• pp.175-188
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• 2023

Global interest in hydrogen energy is increasing as an eco-friendly future energy that can replace fossil fuels. Accordingly, a next-generation hydrogen production technology using microorganisms, nuclear power, etc. is being developed, while a lot of time and effort are still required to overcome the cost of hydrogen production based on fossil fuels. As a way to minimize greenhouse gas emissions in the hydrocarbon-based hydrogen production process, methane direct decomposition technology has recently attracted attention. In order to improve the economic feasibility of the process, the simultaneous production of value-added carbon materials with hydrogen can be one of the most essential aspects. For that purpose, various studies on catalysis related to the quality and yield of high-value carbon materials such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs). In terms of process technology, a number of the research and development of fluidized-bed reactors capable of continuous production and improved gas-solid contact efficiency has been attempted. Recently, methane direct decomposition technology using a fluidized bed has been developed to the extent that it can produce 270 kg/day of hydrogen and 1000 kg/day of carbon. Plus, with the development of catalyst regeneration, separation and recirculation technologies, the process efficiency can be further improved. This review paper investigates the recent development of catalysts and fluidized bed reactor for methane direct pyrolysis to identify the key challenges and opportunities.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.43-49
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• 2023

This study reports on the preparation of sodium caseinate-cardanol (CasNa/CL)-based papers coated with different amounts of bentonite (BN) for use as a sustainable packaging material. Their chemical and morphological structures, mechanical properties, water vapor permeability, surface properties, and antioxidant activity of coated papers was assessed as a function of the BN content. The drying of the CasNa/CL coated papers led to the formation of pinholes on their surfaces owing to the presence of trapped water resulting from the difference in the drying rate between the external surface and the inside of the coated layers. Increasing the BN content reduced the pinholes on surface of CasNa/CL/BN coated papers and highly decreased the water vapor transmittance rate of the papers from 387.3±1.9 g/m²·day to 269.25±4.5 g/m²·day. Free radical scavenging assays indicated the addition of CL to the CasNa exhibited the antioxidant activity and antioxidant activity of CasNa/CL/BN did not changed as increase of BN contents. The improved water vapor barrier property and antioxidant activity of CasNa/CL/BN coated papers can be promised for various packaging applications.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.3
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• pp.456-462
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• 2023

An electrically conductive and transparent electrode was created by applying a dispersion of pristine single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and silver nanowires to a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film using a bar coating method. The SWCNTs were added to increase the electrical conductivity and transmittance of the silver nanowires while also preventing the haze from increasing due to the stacking of multiple layers containing SWCNTs and silver nanowires on the PET substrate. The silver nanowires in the electrode were also found to be stable against oxidation. The transparent electrode displayed excellent electrical and optical properties, with a sheet resistance of 47 Ω/□, transmittance of 96.72%, and haze of 1.93%. Additionally, the sheet resistance of the electrode remained stable over time, with a change of only 6.4% after a constant temperature and humidity test, making it suitable for long-term use. A hybrid transparent electrode that is economically feasible and environmentally sustainable has been developed through the utilization of pristine SWCNT and silver nanowire.