• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.145-148
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• 2010

Oxygen consumption has been regarded as a useful indicator for assessment of mammalian embryo quality. This study was performed to investigate whether oxygen consumption reflects morphological grade of in vivo derived bovine blastocyst-stage embryos (blastocyst). The oxygen consumption of in vitro produced blastocyst was compared to its total cell number. In addition, pregnant rate was measured after transplantation of in vivo blastocysts with different oxygen consumption. The quality of blastocyst collected on day 7 after artificial insemination was categorized as grade I and II (G I and G II) based on microscopic observation of the morphology. Oxygen consumption of blastocyst was measured using a scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) and total cell number of in vitro blastocyst was enumerated by counting cells stained by propidium iodide. Pregnancy of recipient cow was confirmed with rectal palpation after 60 days of embryo transfer. The oxygen consumptions of G I blastocysts were significantly higher than those of G II blastocysts ($10.2{\times}10^{15}/mol\;s^{-1}$ versus $6.4{\times}10^{15}/mol\;s^{-1}$, p<0.05). Total cell numbers of in vitro blastocysts were 74.8, 90.7, and 110.2 in the oxygen consumption of below 10.0, 10.0~12.0, and over $12.0{\sim}10^{15}/mol\;s^{-1}$ respectively. Total cell number was significantly increased in embryos with high oxygen consumption (p<0.05). Pregnant rate in recipient cow was 0, 50, and 85.7% in the transplantation of embryo with the oxygen consumption of below 10.0, 10.0~12.0, and over $12.0{\times}10^{15}/mol\;s^{-1}$, respectively. These results suggest that measurement of oxygen consumption may help increase the pregnant rate of bovine embryos.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.557-564
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• 2021

Sr_0.92Y_0.08Ti_1-xV_xO_3-δ (SYTV) with perovskite structure was investigated as an alternative anode to utilize H₂S containing fuels in solid oxide fuel cells. To improve the electrochemical performance of Sr_0.92Y_0.08TiO_3-δ (SYT), vanadium(V) was substituted to titanium(Ti) at the B-site of the SYT perovskites. The SYTV synthesized by the Pechini method was chemically compatible with the YSZ electrolyte without additional by-products formation under the cell fabricating conditions. As increasing V substitution amounts, the oxygen vacancies increased, resulting to increasing ionic conductivity of the anode. The cell performance in pure H₂ at 850 ℃ is 19.30 mW/cm² and 34.87 mW/cm² for a 1 mol.% and 7 mol.% of V substituted anodes, respectively. The cell performance using H₂ fuel containing 1000 ppm of H₂S at 850 ℃ was 23.37 mW/cm² and 73.11 mW/cm² for a 1 mol.% and 7 mol.% of V substituted anodes, respectively.

• Journal of Embryo Transfer
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.231-235
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• 2009

Oxygen consumption has been regarded as a useful indicator for assessment of mammalian embryo quality. However, there was no standard criterion to measure the oxygen consumption of embryos. Here, we measured oxygen consumption of bovine embryos at various developmental stages was measured using a scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM). We found that the oxygen consumption significantly increased in blastocyst-stage embryos compared to other stage embryos (from 2-cell-stage to morula-stage), indicating that oxygen consumption reflects the cell number ($5.2{\sim}7.6{\times}10^{14}/mol\;s^{-1}$ versus $1.2{\sim}2.4{\times}10^{14}/mol\;s^{-1}$, p<0.05). In the morula-stage embryos, the oxygen consumption of in vivo derived embryos was significantly higher than that of in vitro produced embryos ($4.0{\times}10^{14}/mol\;s^{-1}$ versus $2.4{\times}10^{14}/mol\;s^{-1}$, p<0.05). However, there was no significant difference in consumption of oxygen by in vivo and in vitro-derived bovine blastocyst-stage embryos (p>0.05). In the frozen-thawed blastocyst-stage embryos, live embryos showed significantly higher oxygen consumption than dead embryos ($4.7{\times}10^{14}/mol\;s^{-1}$ versus $1.0{\times}10^{14}/mol\;s^{-1}$, p<0.05). These results indicate that the measuring oxygen consumption by SECM can be used to evaluate bovine embryo quality.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.417-417
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• 2016

Global environmental deterioration has become more serious year by year and thus scientific interests in the renewable energy as environmental technology and replacement of fossil fuels have grown exponentially. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell consisting of semiconductor photoelectrodes that can harvest light and use this energy directly to split water, also known as photoelectrolysis or solar water splitting, is a promising renewable energy technology to produce hydrogen for uses in the future hydrogen economy. A major advantage of PEC systems is that they involve relatively simple processes steps as compared to many other H2 production systems. Until now, a number of materials including TiO2, WO3, Fe2O3, and BiVO4 were exploited as the photoelectrode. However, the PEC performance of these single absorber materials is limited due to their large charge recombinations in bulk, interface and surface, leading low charge separation/transport efficiencies. Recently, coupling of two materials, e.g., BiVO4/WO3, Fe2O3/WO3 and CuWO4/WO3, to form a type II heterojunction has been demonstrated to be a viable means to improve the PEC performance by enhancing the charge separation and transport efficiencies. In this study, we have prepared a triple-layer heterojunction BiVO4/WO3/SnO2 photoelectrode that shows a comparable PEC performance with previously reported best-performing nanostructured BiVO4/WO3 heterojunction photoelectrode via a facile solution method. Interestingly, we found that the incorporation of SnO2 nanoparticles layer in between WO3 and FTO largely promotes electron transport and thus minimizes interfacial recombination. The impact of the SnO2 interfacial layer was investigated in detail by TEM, hall measurement and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) techniques. In addition, our planar-structured triple-layer photoelectrode shows a relatively high transmittance due to its low thickness (~300 nm), which benefits to couple with a solar cell to form a tandem PEC device. The overall PEC performance, especially the photocurrent onset potential (Vonset), were further improved by a reactive-ion etching (RIE) surface etching and electrocatalyst (CoOx) deposition.

• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.42 no.4
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• pp.251-259
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• 2005

In order to characterize the influence of the reaction-site density on the cathodic polarization property of LSCF, we chose the porosity of LSCF as a main controlling variable, which is supposed to be closely related with active sites for the cathode reaction. To control the porosity of cathodes, we changed the mixing ratio of fine and coarse LSCF powders. The porosity and pore perimeter of cathodes were quantitatively analyzed by image analysis. The electrochemical half cell test for the cathodic polarization was performed via 3-probe AC-impedance spectroscopy. According to the investigation, the reduction of oxygen at LSCF cathode was mainly controlled by following two rate determining steps; i) surface diffusion and/or ionic conduction of ionized oxygen through bulk LSCF phase, ii) charge transfer of oxygen ion at cathode/electrolyte interface. Moreover, the overall cathode polarization was diminished as the cathode porosity increased due to the increase of the active reaction sites in cathode layer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2011.08a
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• pp.71-71
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• 2011

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) have drawn great academic attention due to their potential as low-cost renewable energy sources. DSCs contain a nanostructured TiO2 photoanode, which is a key-component for high conversion efficiency. Particularly, one-dimensional (1-D) nanostructured photoanodes can enhance the electron transport for the efficient collection to the conducting substrate in competition with the recombination processes. This is because photoelectron colletion is determined by trapping/detrapping events along the site of the electron traps (defects, surface states, grain boundaries, and self-trapping). Therefore, 1-D nanostructured photoanodes are advantageous for the fast electron transport due to their desirable features of greatly reduced intercrystalline contacts with specified directionality. In particular, anodic TiO2 nanotube (NT) electrodes recently have been intensively explored owing to their ideal structure for application in DSCs. Besides the enhanced electron transport properties resulted from the 1-D structure, highly ordered and vertically oriented nanostructure of anodic TiO2 NT can contribute additional merits, such as enhanced electrolyte diffusion, better interfacial contact with viscous electrolytes. First, to confirm the advantages of 1-D nanostructured material for the photoelectron collection, we compared the electron transport and charge recombination characteristics between nanoparticle (NP)- and nanorod (NR)-based photoanodes in DSCs by the stepped light-induced transient measurements of photocurrent and voltage (SLIM-PCV). We confirmed that the electron lifetime of the NR-based photoanode was much longer than that of the NP-based photoanode. In addition, highly ordered and vertically oriented TiO2 NT photoanodes were prepared by electrochemical anodization method. We compared the photovoltaic properties of DSCs utilizing TiO2 NT photoanodes prepared by one-step anodization and two-step anodization. And, to reduce the charge recombination rate, energy barrier layer (ZnO, Al2O3)-coated TiO2 NTs also applied in DSC. Furthermore, we applied the TiO2 NT photoanode in DSCs using a viscous electrolyte, i.e., cobalt bipyridyl redox electrolyte, and confirmed that the pore structure of NT array can enhance the performances of this viscous electrolyte.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.49-53
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• 2007

The direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) is a promising power source for portable applications due to many advantages such as simple construction, compact design, high energy density, and relatively high energy-conversion efficiency. In this work, an electrochemical methanol sensor for monitoring the methanol concentration in direct methanol fuel cells was fabricated using a thin composite nafion membrane as the electrolyte. We have analyzed the I-V characteristic of the fabricated methanol sensor as a function of methanol concentration, catalyst electrode and platinum(Pt) thickness. The fabricated sensor was analyzed by I-V measurement with various methanol concentration. When we measured the sensor characteristics with 10nm Pt and at 1V, the current value was $1.30{\times}10^{-6}A,\;1.96{\times}10^{-6}A\;and\;2.80{\times}10^{-6} A$ for three methanol concentration of 1M, 2M and 3M, respectively. When the methanol concentration was fixed at 2M, the current value of the fabricated device with Pt layers of 5, 10 and 15 nm thickness was $3.06{\times}10^{-6}A,\;1.96{\times}10^{-6}A\;and\;1.00{\times}10^{-6}A$, respectively. These results lead us to the conclusion that when the methanol concentration increases, the output current increases and when the catalyst electrode become thinner, the current increase more. It showed that, the thinner the catalyst electrode, the more electrochemistry become activation.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.1-12
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• 2011

Partially fluorinated poly(arylene ether sulfone) block ionomer membranes with different branch degree for fuel cell applications were investigated. A sulfonable monomer, a non-sulfonable monomer and a trifunctional branching agent were synthesized and the sulfonable monomer was oligomerized to obtain block structures. The oligomer was then further polymerized with the non-sulfonable monomer and the branching agent. The mole ratio of oligomer : non-sulfonable monomer was fixed at 4:6 and the content of the branching agent was varied from 0 to 2 mol% (BBC-40Bx). Post-sulfonation of BBC-40Bx was carried out using chlorosulfonic acid (CSA) (SBBC-40Bx). All the synthesized compounds were characterized by $^1H$-NMR, $^{19}F$-NMR and FT-IR. It was confirmed that the ion exchange capacity (IEC), water uptake and ion conductivity of SBBC-40Bx increased with the increment of branching agent content.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.249-255
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• 2009

The performance of microbial fuel cell (MFC) can be affected by many factors including the rate of organic matter oxidation, the electron transfer to electrode by electrochemical bacteria, proton diffusion, the concentration of electron acceptor, the rate of electron acceptor reduction and internal resistance. the performance of MFC using oxygen as electron acceptor can be influenced by oxygen concentration as limit factors in cathode compartment. Many studies have been performed to enhance electricity production from MFC. The series or parallel stacked MFC connected several MFC units can use to increase voltages and currents produced from MFCs. In this study, a single MFC (S-MFC) and a stacked MFC (ST-MFC) using acetate as electron donor and oxygen as electron acceptor were used to investigate the influence of dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations in cathode compartment on MFC performance. The power density (W/$m^3$) of S-MFC was in order DO 5 > 3 > 7 > 9 mg/L, the maximum power density (W/$m^3$) of S-MFC was 42 W/$m^3$ at DO 5 mg/L. The power density (W/$m^3$) of ST-MFC was in order DO 5 > 7 > 9 > 3 mg/L and the maximum power density (W/$m^3$) of STMFC was 20 W/$m^3$ at DO 5 mg/L. These results suggest that the DO concentration of cathode chamber should be considered as important limit factor of MFC operation and design for stacked MFC as well as single MFC. The results of ST-MFC operation showed the voltage decrease of some MFC units by salt formation on the surface of anode, resulting in decrease total voltage of ST-MFC. Therefore, connecting MFC units in parallel might be more appropriate way than series connections to enhance power production of stacked MFC.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.120-132
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• 2021

Although the development of high-Nickel is being actively carried out to solve the capacity limitation and the high price of raw cobalt due to the limitation of high voltage use of the existing LiCoO₂, the deterioration of the battery characteristics due to the decrease in structural stability and increase of the Ni content. It is an important cause of delaying commercialization. Therefore, in order to increase the high stability of the Ni-rich ternary cathod material LiNi_0.6Co_0.2Mn_0.2O₂, precursor Ni_0.6Co_0.2Mn_0.2-x(OH)₂/xTiO₂ was prepared using a nanosized TiO₂ suspension type source for uniform Ti substitution in the precursor. It was mixed with Li₂CO₃, and after heating, the cathode active material LiNi_0.6Co_0.2Mn_0.2-xTi_xO₂ was synthesized, and the physical properties according to the Ti content were compared. Through FE-SEM and EDS mapping analysis, it was confirmed that a positive electrode active material having a uniform particle size was prepared through Ti-substituted spherical precursor and Particle Size Analyzer and internal density and strength were increased, XRD structure analysis and ICP-MS quantitative analysis confirmed that the capacity was effectively maintained even when the Ti-substituted positive electrode active material was manufactured and charging and discharging were continued at high temperature and high voltage.