• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.15-22
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• 2008

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.30 no.12 s.255
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• pp.1196-1202
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• 2006

A MEMS methanol reformer was fabricated and its performance was evaluated in the present study. Catalytic steam reforming of methanol was selected because the process had been widely applied in macro scale reformers. Conventional Cu/ZnO catalyst that was prepared by co-precipitation method to give the highest coating quality was used. The reactor structure was made by bonding three layers of glass wafers. The internal structure of the wafer was fabricated by the wet-etching process that resulted in a high aspect ratio. The internal surface of the reactor was coated by catalyst and individual wafers were fusion-bonded to form the reactor structure. The internal volume of the microfabricated reactor was $0.3cm^3$ and the reactor produced exhaust gas with hydrogen concentration at 73%. The production rate of hydrogen was 4.16 ml/hr that could generate power of 350 mW in a typical PEM fuel cell.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.2171-2176
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• 2007

The 3-omega (3-${\omega}$) method is utilized to measure the thermal conductivity of nanofluids. A metal line heater on a silicon nitride membrane bridge structure is microfabricated by a bulk silicon etching method. Localized measurement of the thermal conductivity within the nanofluids droplet is possible by the fabricated 3-${\omega}$ sensor. Time varying AC temperature amplitudes and thermal conductivities are measured to check the stability of the nanofluids containing multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). Stabilities of MWCNT nanofluids prepared with different chemical treatments are compared. Acid treated MWCNT showed best dispersion stability in water while MWCNTs dispersed in water with surfactants such as Gum Arabic and Sodium dodecyl benzene sulfate showed clear sign of gravity dependence.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2008.11a
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• pp.1842-1846
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• 2008

This work reports development of novel liquid-level sensors based on the $3{\omega}$ method. The sensors determine the liquid level by measuring the thermal response as in the conventional hot-wire technique. However the sensors employ an AC heating method to enhance the sensitivity, noise resistance and time response. Also, the microfabricated thin-film structure of the sensor provides mass-producibility as well as improved sensor performance owing to the increase in the surface-volume ratio of the sensor. Two different types of the sensor are developed: one for point detection of the fluid phase and the other for monitoring continuous variation of liquid level. Notable is that the performance of the sensor is not considerably affected by the liquid flow.

• KIEE International Transactions on Electrophysics and Applications
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• v.3C no.5
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• pp.182-188
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• 2003

We have demonstrated a fluidic technique for self-assembly of microfabricated parts onto substrate using patterned shapes of magnetic force self-assembled monolayers (SAMs). The metal particles and the array were fabricated using the micromachining technique. The metal particles were in a multilayer structure (Au, Ti, and Ni). Sidewalls of patterned Ni dots on the array were covered by thick negative photoresist (SU-8), and the array was magnetized. The array and the particles were mixed in buffer solution, and were arranged by magnetic force interaction. Binding direction of the metal particle onto Ni dots was controlled by multilayer structure and direction of magnetization. A quarter of total Ni dots were covered by the particles. The binding direction of the particles was controllable, and condition of particles was almost even with the Au surface on top. The particles were successfully arranged on the array.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.31 no.10
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• pp.876-883
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• 2007

Numerical simulations are conducted for the design of a micro thermal mass air flow sensor (MAFS), which consists of a microfabricated heater and thermopiles on the silicon-nitride ($Si_3N_4$) thin membrane structure. It is important to find the proper locations of these thermal elements in the design of MAFS with improved sensitivity. Three heating modes of the micro-heater are considered: constant temperature, constant power and heating pulses. The analyses are focused on the membrane temperature profile near the sensing section. Considered are the practical flow velocities, ranging from 3 m/s to 35 m/s, and the corresponding Reynolds numbers from 1000 to 10000. The results show that one of optimum sensing locations is about $100{\mu}m$ away from the microheater. It is concluded that the heating mode and configurations of thermal elements are the main factors for the MAFS with higher sensitivity.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.33 no.8
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• pp.573-579
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• 2009

A thermal mass air flow sensor, which consists of a micro-heater and thermal sensors on the silicon-nitride thin membrane structure, is micro-fabricated by MEMS processes. Three thermo-resistive sensors, one for the measurement of microheater temperature, the others for the measurement of membrane temperature upstream and downstream of the micro-heater respectively, are used. The micro-heater is operated under the constant temperature difference mode via a real time controller, based on inlet air temperature. Two design models for microfabricated flow sensor are compared with experimental results and confirmed their applicabilities and limitations. The thermal characteristics are measured to find the best flow indicator. It is found that two normalized temperature indicators can be adopted with some advantages in practice. The flow sensor with this control mode can be adopted for wide capability of high speed and sensitivity in the very low and medium velocity ranges.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.50 no.5
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• pp.929-932
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• 2012

Novel platform technology has been developed to replace the photolithography used currently for manufacturing semiconductors and display devices. As a substrate, plastics, especially polycarbonates, have been considered for future application such as flexible display. Other plastics, i.e. polyimide, polyetheretherketon, and polyethersulfone developed for the substrate at this moment, are available for photolithography due to their high glass transition temperature, instead of high price. After thin polystyrene film was coated on the polycarbonate substrate, microstructure of the film was formed with polydimethylsiloxane template over the glass transition temperature of the polystyrene. The surface of the structure was treated with potassium permanganate and octadecyltrimethoxysilane so that the surface became hydrophobic. After this surface treatment, the nanoparticles dispersed in aqueous solution were aligned in the structure followed by evaporation of the DI water. Without the treatment, the nanoparticles were placed on the undesired region of the structure. Therefore, the interfacial interaction was also utilized for the nanoparticle alignment. The surface was analyzed using X-ray photoelectron spectrometer. The evaporation of the solvent occurred after several drops of the solution where the hydrophilic nanoparticles were dispersed. During the evaporation, the alignment was precisely guided by the physical structure and the interfacial interaction. The alignment was applied to the electric device.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.495-501
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• 2013

This paper describes a flexible wireless telemetering system using a mesoscale cantilever sensor, which is microfabricated with a patterned thin Ni-Cu foil on a resin substrate. The dynamic validation of the sensor has been conducted in a flow. The wireless telemetry is used to obtain data regarding the oscillating flows. It is shown that the sensor is nearly independent of the environmental temperature and is suitable for application to primary healthcare and diagnostic devices. It can be easily integrated with other modules for measuring physiological parameters, e.g., blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and heart rate, to increase the convenience and reliability of diagnosis. The precision and reliability of the sensor are also dependent on the design of the analog front-end and noise reduction techniques. It is shown that the present system's minimum interval between packet transmissions is ~16 ms.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.31 no.3 s.258
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• pp.209-216
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• 2007

Bacterial chemotaxis is essential to the study of structure and function of bacteria. Although many studies have accumulated the knowledge about chemotaxis in the past, the motion of a single bacterium has not been studied much yet. In this study, we have developed a device microfabricated by soft lithography and consisting of microfluidic channels. The microfluidic assay generates a concentration gradient of chemoattractant linearly in the main channel by only diffusion of the chemicals. Bacteria are injected into the main channel in a single row by hydrodynamic focusing technique. We measured the velocity of bacteria in response to a given concentration gradient of chemoattractant using the microfludic assay, optical systems with CCD camera and simple PTV (Particle Tracking Velocimetry) algorithm. The advantage of this assay and experiment is to measure the velocity of a single bacterium and to quantify the degree of chemotaxis by statistically analyzing the velocity at the same time. Specifically, we measured and analyzed the motility of Escherichia coli strain RP437 in response to various concentration gradients of L-aspartate statistically and quantitatively by using this microfluidic assay. We obtained the probability density of the velocity while RP437 cells are swimming and tumbling in the presence of the linear concentration gradient of L-aspartate, and quantified the degree of chemotaxis by analyzing the probability density.