• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.185-191
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• 2013

Over the past decades, carbon dioxide concentration of the atmosphere of the world has increased significantly, and thereby the greenhouse effect has become a social issue. To solve this problem, new renewable energy sources including solar, hydrogen, geothermal, wind and bio-energy are suggested as alternatives. Among these new energy sources, bio-energy crops are widely introduced and under rapid progress. For example, corn and oilseed rape plants are used for the production of bio-ethanol and bio-diesel, respectively. However, grain prices has increased severely because of the use of corn for bio-ethanol production. Therefore, non-edible switchgrass draws attention as an alternative source for bio-ethanol production in USA. This review describes the shortage of fossil energy and an importance of switchgrass as a bio-energy crop. Also, some characteristics of its major cultivars are introduced including growth habit, total output of biomass yields. Furthermore, biotechnological approaches have been conducted to improve the productivity of switchgrass using tissue culture and genetic transformation.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.17-24
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• 1996

The computer simulation model was established to verify the applicability of smelting reduction concept to treatment of industrial wastes which becomes issue on the enviromental and recycling view point. Computer simulation model provides as following results. The increase of post combustion ratio(PCR) and heat transfer efficiency of PC energy(HTE) is effective ways to save energy. But, in order to increase PCR, recovery efficiency of post combustion energy(HTE) have to be higher than 85% HTE considering refractory life and saving energy together. Coke is most useful fuel source because it shows lowest dependence of PCR and low hydrogen content. The quality of hot metal of current process would be expected to the similar level with that of blast furnace. The utilization of scrap and Al dross can be also possible to maximize the advantages of current process which is high temperature and chemical dilution with hot metal and slag. In case of scrap, energy consumption was slightly increases because of heating up energy of scrap. Consquently, current process concept provides the possibility of intergrating recycles of industrial wastes materials such as EAF slag, coke oven dust, life terminated acidic refractory, aluminium dross and scrap by smelting reduction process.

• Journal of the Semiconductor & Display Technology
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.98-102
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• 2019

Direct plasma-enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD) are widely used for $SiO_2$ and SiON thin film process in current semiconductor industry. However, this exhibits poor step coverage for three-dimensional device structure due directionality of plasma species as well as plasma damage on the substrate. In this study, to overcome this issue, low temperature (< $300^{\circ}C$) $SiO_2$ and SiON thin film processes were studied using inductively coupled plasma (ICP) type remote PEALD with various reactant gases such as $O_2$, $H_2O$, $N_2$ and $NH_3$. It was confirmed that the interfacial properties such as fixed charge density and charge trapping behavior of thin films were considerably improved by hydrogen species in $H_2O$ and $NH_3$ plasma compared to the films grown with $O_2$ and $N_2$ plasma. Furthermore, the leakage current density of the thin films was suppressed for same reason.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.19 no.12
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• pp.14-20
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• 2020

Currently, the automotive market is intensively researching eco-friendly vehicles such as EV vehicles and hydrogen vehicles. Further, research and developments for the future markets such as autonomous vehicles and the connective cars are coped up continuously along with the rising fuel economy regulations and the emission regulations. In this development, various sensors, batteries, and control devices are fused in order to decrease the weight of the vehicle. Moreover, since the fuel economy regulation is an issue, research on the weight reduction of body parts is underway. Therefore, in this work, a study is conducted to obtain the optimal design of the Dash part that separates the engine room and the passenger seat of the vehicle body by combining lightweight materials with high rigidity materials. The optimal design was obtained using the Finite Element Analysis. Further, AL5083 was used as the lightweight material and ASBC1470 was used for high strength materials. The parts made with this combination of materials had strength equivalent to that of the existing steel and the weight was reduced by 10%.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.122-122
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• 2008

Recently, Metal/Alumina/Silicon-Nitride/Silicon-Oxide/Silicon (MANOS) structures are one of the most attractive candidates to realize vertical scaling of high-density NAND flash memory [1]. However, as ANO layers are miniaturized, negative and positive bias temperature instability (NBTI/PBTI), such as the flat band voltage shift, ${\Delta}V_{FB}$, the interfacial trap density increase, ${\Delta}D_{it}$, the gate leakage current, ${\Delta}I_G$. and the retention characteristics, in MONOS capacitors, becomes an important issue in terms of reliability. It is well known that tunnel oxide degradation is a result of the oxide and interfacial traps generation during FN (Fowler-Nordheim) stress [2]. Because the bias temperature stress causes an increase of both interfacial-traps and fixed oxide charge could be a factor, witch can degrade device reliability during the program and erase operation. However, few studies on NBTI/PBTI have been conducted on improving the reliability of MONOS devices. In this work, we investigate the effect of post-annealing gas on bias temperature instability (BTI), such as the flat band voltage shift, ${\Delta}V_{FB}$, the interfacial trap density shift, ${\Delta}I_G$ retention characteristics, and the gate leakage current characteristics of MANOS capacitors. MANOS samples annealed at $950^{\circ}C$ for 30 s by a rapid thermal process were treated via additional annealing in a furnace, using annealing gases $N_2$ and $N_2-H_2$ (2 % hydrogen and 98 % nitrogen mixture gases) at $450^{\circ}C$ for 30 min. MANOS samples annealed in $N_2-H_2$ ambient had the lowest flat band voltage shift, ${\Delta}V_{FB}$ = 1.09/0.63 V at the program/erase state, and the good retention characteristics, 123/84 mV/decade at the program/erase state more than the sample annealed at $N_2$ ambient.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.31-42
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• 2007

Energy supply is increasingly showing up as a major issue for electricity supply, transportation, settlement, and process heat industrial supply including hydrogen production. Nuclear power is part of the solution. For electricity supply, as exemplified in Finland and France, the EPR brings an immediate answer; HTR could bring another solution in some specific cases. For other supply, mostly heat, the HTR brings a solution inaccessible to conventional nuclear power plants for very high or even high temperature. As fossil fuels costs increase and efforts to avoid generation of Greenhouse gases are implemented, a market for nuclear generated process heat will be developed. Following active developments in the 80's, HTR have been put on the back burner up to 5 years ago. Light water reactors are widely dominating the nuclear production field today. However, interest in the HTR technology was renewed in the past few years. Several commercial projects are actively promoted, most of them aiming at electricity production. ANTARES is today AREVA's response to the cogeneration market. It distinguishes itself from other concepts with its indirect cycle design powering a combined cycle power plant. Several reasons support this design choice, one of the most important of which is the design flexibility to adapt readily to combined heat and power applications. From the start, AREVA made the choice of such flexibility with the belief that the HTR market is not so much in competition with LWR in the sole electricity market but in the specific added value market of cogeneration and process heat. In view of the volatility of the costs of fossil fuels, AREVA's choice brings to the large industrial heat applications the fuel cost predictability of nuclear fuel with the efficiency of a high temperature heat source tree of Greenhouse gases emissions. The ANTARES module produces 600 MWth which can be split into the required process heat, the remaining power drives an adapted prorated electric plant. Depending on the process heat temperature and power needs, up to 80% of the nuclear heat is converted into useful power. An important feature of the design is the standardization of the heat source, as independent as possible of the process heat application. This should expedite licensing. The essential conditions for success include: ${\bullet}$ Timely adapted licensing process and regulations, codes and standards for such application and design ${\bullet}$ An industry oriented R&D program to meet the technological challenges making the best use of the international collaboration. Gen IV could be the vector ${\bullet}$ Identification of an end user(or a consortium of) willing to fund a FOAK

• Membrane Journal
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.458-462
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• 2016

Saline water electrolysis, known as chlor-alkali (CA) membrane process, is an electrochemical process to generate valued chemicals such as chlorine, hydrogen and sodium hydroxide with high purities higher than 99%, using an electrolytic cell composed of cation exchange membrane, anode and cathode. It is necessary to reduce energy consumption per a unit chemical production. This issue can be solved by decreasing intrinsic resistance of the membrane and the electrodes and/or by reducing their interfacial resistance. In this study, the electron radiation grafting of a $Na^+$ ion-selective polymer was conducted onto a hydrocarbon sulfonated ionomer membrane with high chemical resistance. This approach was effective in improving electrochemical efficiency via the synergistic effect of relatively fast $Na^+$ ion conduction and reduced interfacial resistance.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.2465-2471
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• 2012

For the steel structures those are used in harsh sea environments, corrosion fatigue is a challenging issue in connection with design life. In this research, in order to investigate the influence of cathodic overprotection on the corrosion fatigue crack propagation behavior, corrosion fatigue crack propagation test under the condition of -950mV vs SCE was conducted by using of high tensile TMCP steel plate and the relationships between da/dN-${\Delta}K$ were obtained. At this test, when ${\Delta}K$ is low, the crack propagation rates were accelerated compared to those of seawater condition, however, when ${\Delta}K$ is high, the crack propagation rates were lower than those of seawater condition. As the cause for the acceleration and deceleration of corrosion fatigue crack propagation rates under the condition of cathodic overprotection, the role of hydrogen and calcareous deposits are discussed.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.363-372
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• 2014

In this study, we proposed a newly designed sulfuric acid transfer system for the sulfur-iodine (SI) thermochemical cycle. The proposed sulfuric acid transfer system was evaluated using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis for investigating thermodynamic/hydrodynamic characteristics and material properties. This analysis was conducted to obtain reliable continuous operation parameters; in particular, a thermal analysis was performed on the bellows box and bellows at amplitudes and various frequencies (0.1, 0.5, and 1.0 Hz). However, the high temperatures and strongly corrosive operating conditions of the current sulfuric acid system present challenges with respect to the structural materials of the transfer system. To resolve this issue, we designed a novel transfer system using polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, $Teflon^{(R)}$) as a bellows material for the transfer of sulfuric acid. We also carried out a CFD analysis of the design. The CFD results indicated that the maximum applicable temperature of PTFE is about 533 K ($260^{\circ}C$), even though its melting point is around 600 K. This result implies that the PTFE is a potential material for the sulfuric acid transfer system. The CFD simulations also confirmed that the sulfuric acid transfer system was designed properly for this particular investigation.

• Corrosion Science and Technology
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.280-287
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• 2013

Flow accelerated corrosion(FAC) of the carbon steel piping in pressurized water reactors(PWRs) has been major issue in nuclear industry. Severe accident at Surry Unit 2 in 1986 initiated the worldwide interest in this area. Major parameters influencing FAC are material composition, microstructure, water chemistry, and hydrodynamics. Qualitative behaviors of FAC have been well understood but quantitative data about FAC have not been published for proprietary reason. In order to minimize the FAC in PWRs, the optimal method is to control water chemistry factors. Chemistry factors influencing FAC such as pH, corrosion potential, and hydrazine contents were reviewed in this paper. FAC rate decreased with pH up to 10 because magnetite solubility decreased with pH. Corrosion potential is generally controlled dissolved oxygen (DO) and hydrazine in secondary water. DO increased corrosion potential. FAC rate decreased with DO by stabilizing magnetite at low DO concentration or by formation of hematite at high DO concentration. Even though hydrazine is generally used to remove DO, hydrazine itself thermally decomposed to ammonia, nitrogen, and hydrogen raising pH. Hydrazine could react with iron and increased FAC rate. Effect of hydrazine on FAC is rather complex and should be careful in FAC analysis. FAC could be managed by adequate combination of pH, corrosion potential, and hydrazine.