• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.484.2-484.2
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• 2014

There are many efforts to improving the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). Although DSCs have a low production cost, their low PCE and low thermal stability have limited commercial applications. This study describes the preparation of a novel multifunctional polymer gel electrolyte in which a cross-linking polymerization reaction is used to encapsulate $TiO_2$ nanoparticles toward improving the power conversion efficiency and long-term stability of a quasi-solid state DSC. A series of liquid junction dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) was fabricated based on polymer membrane encapsulated dye-sensitized $TiO_2$ nanoparticles, prepared using a surface-induced cross-linking polymerization reaction, to investigate the dependence of the solar cell performance on the encapsulating membrane layer thickness. The ion conductivity decreased as the membrane thickness increased; however, the long term-stability of the devices improved with increasing membrane thickness. Nanoparticles encapsulated in a thick membrane (ca. 37 nm), obtained using a 90 min polymerization time, exhibited excellent pore filling among $TiO_2$ particles. This nanoparticle layer was used to fabricate a thin-layered, quasi-solid state DSC. The thick membrane prevented short-circuit paths from forming between the counter and the $TiO_2$ electrode, thereby reducing the minimum necessary electrode separation distance. The quasi-solid state DSC yielded a high power conversion efficiency (7.6/8.1%) and excellent stability during heating at $65^{\circ}C$ over 30 days. These performance characteristics were superior to those obtained from a conventional DSC (7.5/3.5%) prepared using a $TiO_2$ active layer with the same thickness. The reduced electrode separation distance shortened the charge transport pathways, which compensated for the reduced ion conductivity in the polymer gel electrolyte. Excellent pore filling on the $TiO_2$ particles minimized the exposure of the dye to the liquid and reduced dye detachment.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.70-77
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• 2019

$SiO_x$ nanoparticles were granulated, and their microstructures and effects on electrochemical behaviors were investigated. In spite of the promising electrochemical performance of $SiO_x$, nanoparticles have limitations such as high surface area, low density, and difficulty in handling during slurry processing. Granulation can be one solution. In this study, pelletizing and annealing were conducted to create particles with sizes of several decades of micron. Decrease in surface area directly influences the initial charge and discharge process when granules are applied as anode materials for Li-ion batteries. Lower surface area is key to decreasing the amount of irreversible phase-formation, such as $Li_2Si_2O_5$, $Li_2SiO_3$ and $Li_4SiO_4$, as well as forming the solid electrolyte interface. Additionally, aggregation of nanoparticles is required to obtain further enhancement of the electrochemical behavior due to restrictions that there be no $Li_4SiO_4$-related reaction during the first discharge process.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.47-54
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• 2010

Although the demands for the dredging work have been increasing due to social and industrial reasons including national plan for restoration of four major rivers, environmental standards or management guidelines for the dredged river sediment are limited. The suggested environmental standard for the beneficial use of dredged river sediment consists of two levels, recyclable and concern, and includes eight contaminants such as metals and organic contaminants. The systematic approach to remediate dredged river sediment is also suggested. The system consists of both washing and stabilization processes with continuous multi particle separation. In the early stage, the sediments are separated into two particle sizes. The coarse-grained sediment over 0.075 mm, generally decontaminated with less trouble, follows normal washing steps and is sent for recycling. The fine-grained sediments under 0.075 mm are separated again at 0.025 mm. The particles bigger than this second separation point are treated in two ways, advanced washing for highly contaminated sediments and stabilization for less. The lab test results show that birnessite and apatite are most effective stabilizing agents among tested for Cd and Pb. The most fine residues, down-sized by continuous particle separation, are finally sent for disposal. The system is tested for metals in this study, but is expected to be effective for organic contaminants included in the environmental standard, such as PAH and PCE. The feasibility test on the field site will be followed.

• Journal of ILASS-Korea
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.162-169
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• 2020

The worldwide focus on reducing the emissions, fuel and lubricant consumption in T-GDI engines is leading engineers to consider the crankcase ventilation and oil mist separation system as an important means of control. In today's passenger cars, the oil mist separation systems mainly use the inertia effect (e.g. labyrinth, cyclone etc.). Therefore, this study has investigated high efficiency cylinder head-integrated oil-mist separator by using a compact multi-impactor type oil mist separator system to ensure adequate oil mist separation performance. For this purpose, engine dynamometer testing with oil particle efficiency measurement equipment and 3D two-phase flow simulation have been performed for various engine operating conditions. Tests with an actual engine on a dynamometer showed oil aerosol particle size distributions varied depending on operating conditions. For instance, high rpm and load increases bot only blow-by gases but the amount of small size oil droplets. Submicron-sized particles (less than 0.5 ㎛) were also observed. It is also found that the impactor type separator is able to separate nearly no droplets of diameter lower than 3 ㎛. CFD results showed that the complex aerodynamics processes that lead to strong impingement and break-up can strip out large droplets and generate more small size droplets.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.77-85
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• 2010

This study was carried out to develop a process flow sheet for recovering valuables (gold and high purity silica) from the gold mine tailings containing 1.7 g/ton of gold and 79.48 wt.% $SiO_2$. Float-sink tests using heavy liquids was conducted to explore the possibility of recovering gold by gravity separation. Hydrocyclone, froth flotation, and triboelectrostatic separatoin tests were conducted to recover high purity silica from the gold mine tailings. The results of float-sink tests showed that particles containing 5.58 g/ton of gold could be obtained at 2.72 specific gravity, but with very low yields around 3%. Meanwhile, all tests with hydrocyclone, froth flotation, and triboelectrostatic separation showed that high purity silica with $SiO_2$ content over 90% could be obtained. The purity could be improved further up to about 94% by employing several recleaning steps in the froth flotation and triboelectrostatic process.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.26 no.6
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• pp.710-717
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• 2002

Molecularly imprinted polymers were prepared in particle forms by crosslinking methacrylic acid (MAA)) using all trans-retinoic acid as a template. The HPLC column packed with the prepared molecular imprinted polymers showed high capability in separation of retinoid derivatives. The column capacity factor and selectivity increased with increasing MAA to template ratio when the incorporated template amount was fixed, as it statistically generated more binding sites between host molecules and template. Molecularly imprinted polymer particles prepared via an emulsion polymerization method were round-shaped and their sizes were more uniformly distributed, but their separation capability was inferior to those obtained by solution polymerization method. It was presumably because the loss of interaction strength between MAA and the template due to hydrogen bonding either between MAA and water or between template and water during the synthesis of molecularly imprinted polymers.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.958-964
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• 2008

In this work, micro-sized dextran particles, which have recently been focused as one of the candidate materials for the Drug Delivery System(DDS), were prepared by means of the Supercritical Antisolvent (SAS) process with $CO_2$. With dimethyl sulfoxide(DMSO) as the solvent, effects of the operating variables such as temperature (308.15~323.15 K), pressure(90~130 bar), solute concentration(10~20 mg/ml), and the molecular weight of the solute(Mw=37,500, 450,000) on the size and morphology of the resulting particles were thoroughly observed. The higher solute concentration led to the larger particles, however, the injection velocity of the solution and pressure did not show significant effects on the resulting particle size. With dextran of the lower molecular weight, the smallest particles were obtained at 313.15 K. On the other hand, the size of the particles from the high molecular weight dextran ranged between $0.1{\sim}0.5{\mu}m$ with an incremental effect of the temperature and pressure. For the solute concentration of 5 mg/ml, the lower molecular weight dextran did not form discrete particles while aggregation of the particles appeared when the solute concentration exceeded 15 mg/ml for the higher molecular weight dextran. It is believed that if the solute concentration is too low, the degree of the supersaturation in the recrystallization chamber would not be sufficient for initiation of the nucleation and growth mechanism. Instead, the spinodal decomposition mechanism leads to formation of the island-like phase separation which appears similar to aggregation of the discrete particles. This effect would be more pronounced for the smaller molecular weight polymer system due to the narrower phase-splitting region.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.81-92
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• 2015

Construction waste mainly consists of concrete aggregates of various size. Improper handling of concrete waste would be a major environmental problem whereas its recycling would be both economically useful and environmentally friendly. Bigger concrete aggregates are crushed and converted to medium and fine particles to make them recyclable. An apparatus to separate the concrete aggregates by their size is thus needed for their effective recycling. In this work, segregation of concrete particles in air flows from a newly designed rotary separator having three stages of blades is simulated using a commercial software, ANSYS-CFX. Both 2-D and 3-D models with 360, 240 and 180 blades in each stage are considered. Fundamental mechanism of separation of particles(pase) and the effect of design parameters such as particle size, rotor speed, air flow rate etc. on the performance of the separator are investigated. Critical size of particles that can be separated by the developed separator is also presented in this work. Simulation results are overall in good agreement with data predicted from the theoretical model previously reported in the companion paper.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.925-936
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• 2020

To ascertain the characteristics of pool sloshing behavior that might be encountered during a core disruptive accident of sodium-cooled fast reactors, in our earlier work several series of experiments were conducted under various scenarios including the condition with mono-sized solid particles. It is found that under the particle-bed condition, three typical flow regimes (namely the bubble-impulsion dominant regime, the transitional regime and the bed-inertia dominant regime) could be identified and a flow-regime model (base model) has been even successfully established to estimate the regime transition. In this study, aimed to further understand this behavior at more realistic particle-bed conditions, a series of simulated experiments is newly carried out using mixed-size particles. Through analyses, it is verified that for present scenario, by applying the area mean diameter, our previously-developed base model can provide the most appropriate predictive results among the various effective diameters. To predict the regime transition with a form of extension scheme, a correction factor which is based on the volume-mean diameter and the degree of convergence in particle-size distribution is suggested and validated. The conducted analyses in this work also indicate that under certain conditions, the potential separation between different particle components might exist during the sloshing process.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.51 no.4
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• pp.476-481
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• 2013

Ethylbenzene (EB) which has a similar physical properties with p-xylene (pX) was separated from EB/pX mixture by using MFI-type zeolite (TS-1, ZSM-5, and Silicalite-1) coated membranes. The zeolites were synthesized by microwave method to reduce the synthesis time and uniformly formed zeolite particles were coated on the ${\alpha}$-almina tubular support with a thickness of $3-4{\mu}m$. Separation factor and permeation flux of the synthesized zeolite coated membranes were measured to survey the best performance of ethylbenzene separation from different composition of EB/pX mixtures. When the EB/pX mixture of 5:5 molar ratio applied for the separation experiment, it represented the highest separation factor. We also have studied about the effect of the atomic composition of zeolites on the separation performance within the temperature range from 160 to $220^{\circ}C$. TS-1 showed the highest permeation flux of $1,666mol/m^{2*}s^*Pa$ and Silicate-1 showed the highest separation factor of 1.73 at $200^{\circ}C$ respectively.