• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.75-80
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• 2015

Multi-block sulfonated poly(arylene ether sulfone) (SPAES) copolymer was synthesized via nucleophilic aromatic substitution reaction for proton exchange membrane fuel cell application. After synthesizing the hydrophilic and hydrophobic precursor oligomers having different end-groups (F-terminated or OH-terminated), the effect of end group on the molecular weight was investigated. Hydrophilic oligomers with hydroquinone showed better performance as fuel cell membranes. SPAES membranes showed comparable proton conductivity to that of Nafion at $80^{\circ}C$ and above 70% RH. In particular, SPAES 9 with hydroquinone showed higher proton conductivity than SPAES 10 in the whole RH range studied. Increased local concentration of sulfonic acids within hydrophilic block might develop the hydrophilic-hydrophobic phase separation in the block copolymers.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.173-184
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• 2010

Microbial fuel cell (MFC) is a promising renewable energy source that can generate electrical energy from organic wastes using microbe. This technology has been regarded as a future green alternative energy in that MFC makes use of organic-rich wastewater and also reduces waste sludges as well as produces electricity. To be practically realized, however, achieving higher power density than now is demanded, which may be possible by eliminating various negative factors to act as resistances in MFC operations. For instance, highly activated microbes, highly conductive electrode materials, and fast electron transfer between microbes and electrodes can lead to MFC with high power density. In particular, polymer electrolyte membranes are also a key component for improved MFC performance.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.235-238
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• 2007

There is great interest in the applicability of generated hydrogen peroxide to a variety of industrial processes, usually involving oxidation of organics. Hydrogen peroxide is now employed for the bleaching as well as mechanical and chemical treatment in the pulp and paper industries. It addition, it is considered as an agent to displace the traditional alkaline treatments with chlorine-based chemicals. This paper reports a comparative study of $H_2O_2$ electogeneration on gas-diffusion electrode in divided cell with several $Nafion^{(R)}$ proton-exchange membranes, Russian cation-exchange membrane MK-40 and SPEEK membrane. The influence of different PEMs on electro-chemical cell voltage, current efficiency and energy consumption of hydrogen peroxide generation has been studied.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.191-199
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• 2003

Cation exchange polymer electrolyte membrane for the application of direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) was studied. Poly(vinyl alcohol)(PVA) well known as a methanol barrier in pervaporation separation was used fur the base materials and poly(acrylic acid)(PAA) was used for the crosslinking agent with various concentration. Methanol permeability, ion conductivity, ion exchange capacity, water contents and fixed ion concentration of the membranes were investigated to evaluate the performance of the fuel cell electrolyte membrane. Methanol permeability and ion conductivity of the membranes were decreased with increasing PAA content and were increased over 15% of PAA content. These phenomena would be explained with the introduction of hydrophilic crosslinking agent. The membranes with 15% content of PAA showed methanol permeability of $6.49{\times}10^{-8}/cm^2/s,\; 2.85{\times}10^{-7}CM^2/s$ at $25^{\circ}C,\; 50^{\circ}C$ of operating temperatures, respectively. ion conductivities of the membrane were $2.66{\times}10^{-3}\;S/cm,$ $9.16{\times}10^{-3}\;S/cm$ at $25^{\circ}C,\; 50^{\circ}C$ of operating temperatures, respectively. ion exchange capacity, water content and fixed ion concentration of the membrane were revealed 1.32 meq/g membrane,0.25 g $H_2$O/g membrane and 5.25 meq/g $H_2O$, respectively.

• Journal of Periodontal and Implant Science
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.839-848
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• 2007

Purpose: Various kinds of biodegradable membranes are currently used in dental clinics. And the frequency and the necessity of their usage are increasing due to their numerous advantages. Therefore it is important to understand the difference of various membranes and histological reaction against implanted membranes. Materials and Methods: Biodegradable membranes of $Biogide^{(R)}$, $Resolute^{(R)}$, and $Tutodent^{(R)}$ were cut into small pieces by $1.0{\times}0.5cm$. The membranes were implanted 1.5cm apart from each other under the epithelium on the skull of 18 Sprague Dawley rats. The animals were sacrificed at 3, 7, and 14 days after surgical procedure. The specimens were examined by histological analysis. Results: 1. Early period after implantation of the membranes showed connective tissues surrounding membranes and there were a few inflammatory cells present. 2. In $Biogide^{(R)}$ and $Tutodent^{(R)}$ specimens, inflammatory cells and surrounding tissues were shown to infiltrate from outside with slight density difference inside. In $Resolute^{(R)}$ specimens, membranes were fragmented. Inflammatory cells and connective tissues were also observed inside. 3. In $Resolute^{(R)}$ specimen, giant cells were present which implicates that foreign body reaction has occurred. 4. $Biogide^{(R)}$ had lower integrity than other membranes and is not enough to be used alone in defect area. However, $Resolute^{(R)}$ had superior firmness than others. $Tutodent^{(R)}$ had middle level of integrity. Conclusion: This experimental model enabled to observe early inflammatory reactions and morphological changes of materials and can be used to develop and evaluate the efficacy of biodegradable membranes. Duplication of standardized human oral environment will be required in future experiments.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2016

Vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs) using the electrolytes containing various vanadium ions in sulfuric acid as supporting solution are one of the energy storage devices in alternatively charging and discharging operation modes. The positive electrolyte contains $V^{5+}/V^{4+}$ and the negative electrolyte $V^{2+}/V^{3+}$ depending on the operation mode. To prevent the mixing of two solutions, proton exchange membranes are mainly used in VRFBs. Nafion 117 could be the most promising candidate due to the strong oxidative property of $V^{5+}$ ion, but causes high crossover of electroactive species to result in a decrease in coulombic efficiency. In this study, the composite membranes using Nafion ionomer and porous polyethylene substrate were prepared to keep good chemical stability and to decrease the cost of membranes, and were compared to the properties and performance of the commercially available electrolyte membrane, Nafion 117. As a result, the water uptake and ionic conductivity of the composite membranes increased as the thickness of the composite membranes increased, but those of Nafion 117 slightly decreased. The permeability of vanadium ions for the composite membranes significantly decreased compared to that for Nafion 117. In a single cell test for the composite membranes, the voltage efficiency decreased and the coulombic efficiency increased, finally resulting in the similar energy efficiency. In conclusion, the less cost of the composite membranes by decreasing 6.4 wt.% of the amount of perfluorinated sulfonic acid polymer due to the introduction of porous substrate and lower vanadium ion permeability to decrease self-discharge were achieved than Nafion 117.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.7
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• pp.881-890
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• 2011

Analyses of performance and behavior of the individual PEM fuel cells (PEMFC) under different operating conditions are of importance optimally to design and efficiently to operate the stack. The paper focuses on experimental analyses of a two-cell stack under different operating conditions, which performance and behavior are measured by the voltage of a cell as well as the stack. Experimental parameters include stoichiometric ratio, temperature of the air supplied under different working stack temperatures and loads. Results showed that the cell voltages are dominantly influenced by the temperature of the air supplied among others. In addition, an inherent difference between the first and the second cell voltage exists because of the tolerances of the cell components and the resulting different over-potentials at different equilibrium states. Furthermore, it is shown that the proton conductivity in the membranes conditioned by the humidity in the cathode channel highly affects the voltage differences of the two cells.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2004.05b
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• pp.1-8
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• 2004

Ion-conducting polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs) have recently used in developing fuel cell or solar cell for portable, mobile and residential applications [1]. Polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC), direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC), alkaline electrolyte fuel cell (AFC) and dye-sensitized solar cell have been employing the ion-conducting PEMs to complete their electrical circuits to produce electricity.(omitted)

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.1713-1720
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• 2015

The present work describes experiments undertaken to evaluate the usefulness of selected physicochemical indices of semen, cell membrane integrity and sperm chromatin structure for the assessment of boar semen sensitivity to processes connected with pre-insemination procedures. The experiments were carried out on 30 boars: including 15 regarded as providers of sensitive semen and 15 regarded as providers of semen that is little sensitive to laboratory processing. The selection of boars for both groups was based on sperm morphology analyses, assuming secondary morphological change incidence in spermatozoa as the criterion. Two ejaculates were manually collected from each boar at an interval of 3 to 4 months. The following analyses were carried out for each ejaculate: sperm motility assessment, sperm pH measurement, sperm morphology assessment, sperm chromatin structure evaluation and cell membrane integrity assessment. The analyses were performed three times. Semen storage did not cause an increase in the incidence of secondary morphological changes in the group of boars considered to provide sperm of low sensitivity. On the other hand, with continued storage there was a marked increase in the incidence of spermatozoa with secondary morphological changes in the group of boars regarded as producing more sensitive semen. Ejaculates of group I boars evaluated directly after collection had an approximately 6% smaller share of spermatozoa with undamaged cell membranes than the ejaculates of boars in group II ($p{\leq}0.05$). In the process of time the percentage of spermatozoa with undamaged cell membranes decreased. The sperm of group I boars was characterised with a lower sperm motility than the semen of group II boars. After 1 hour of storing diluted semen, the sperm motility of boars producing highly sensitive semen was already 4% lower ($p{\leq}0.05$), and after 24 hours of storage it was 6.33% lower than that of the boars that produced semen with a low sensitivity. Factors that confirm the accuracy of insemination male selection can include a low rate of sperm motility decrease during the storage of diluted semen, low and contained incidence of secondary morphological changes in spermatozoa during semen storage and a high frequency of spermatozoa with undamaged cell membranes.

• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.21 no.5
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• pp.324-328
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• 2012

In the past a few decades, various kinds of cells have been examined in laboratories all over the world, and their interesting results have been expressed through various methods in journal publications. For a representative example, the increment or reduction of cell numbers during a bio-related experimental process has been demonstrated using the hazard ratio in survival analysis or in the form of a graph. In addition, the condition of cells such as their normality or abnormality would be indicated by the images of the cell nuclei or membranes treated with proper fluorescent labeling. However, the above methods seem to not be quantitative but rather qualitative assessments, which might be difficult to provide people with the eidetic understanding through parameters or numerical data. With adequate suggestions on any indices enabling the explanation for cell conditions, some analyses may be underestimated due to the lack of objectiveness caused by merely linguistic evaluation for the cell conditions, not numerally scientific interpretation. Therefore, in this study, we would suggest some indices enabling quantitative analysis on the cellular conditions.