• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2013.08a
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• pp.280-280
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• 2013

In green plants, energy generation is accomplished through light-harvesting photosystem, which utilize abundant visible light and multi-stepwise redox reaction to oxidize water and reduce NADP+, transferring electrons efficiently with active cofactors1. Inspired by natural photosynthesis, artificial solar water-splitting devices are being designed variously. However, the several approaches involving immobilization2, conjugation3, and surface modification4 still have limitations. We have made artificial photosynthesis templates by self-assembling tyrosine-based peptide to mimick photosystem II. Porphyrin sensitizer absorbing blue light strongly was conjugated with the templates and they were hybridized with cobalt oxide through the reduction of cobalt ions in an aqueous solution. The formation of hybrid templates was characterized using TEM, and their water oxidation performance was measured by fluorescence oxygen probe. Our results suggest that the bio-templated assembly of functional compounds has a great potential for artificial photosynthesis.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.149-153
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• 2012

Among the various solar-hydrogen production techniques a combination of a photovoltaic (PV) and an electrolytic cell into one single system, a monolithic PV-electrolytic cell, has been suggested as a promising one in terms of efficiency and stability. In this mini-review, we describe our recent efforts on the fabrication of the monolithic PV-electrolytic cell. Particularly, we focus on the electrocatalysts for water oxidation and its fabrication method suitable for a monolithic PV-electrolytic cell. We also introduce proto-type devices with a dye-sensitized solar cell module and an InGaP/GaAs photoelectrodes.

• Solar Energy
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.19-25
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• 1988

[ $SnO_2$ ] thin films have been deposited on the pyrex glasses and silicon wafers by CVD method. Tin oxide films had a good transmittance above 80% in the visible region and the lowest sheet resistance at $520^{\circ}C$. When the ratio of $SbCl_3$ was 2wt%. The optimum conditions were obtained at the oxidation time of 3 minutes in the case that Voc and Jsc were 0.40V and $33.5mA/cm^2$ respectively and the corresponding conversion efficiency was 6.07%.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.620-626
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• 2014

The main focus of this study was the evaluation of arsenic concentration in the ground water of Lahore at different depth and application of different mitigation techniques for arsenic removal. Twenty four hours of solar oxidation gives 90% of arsenic removal as compared to 8 hr. or 16 hr. Among oxides, calcium oxide gives 96% of As removal as compared to 93% by lanthanum oxide. Arsenic removal efficiency was up to 97% by ferric chloride, whereas 95% by alum. Activated alumina showed 99% removal as compared to 97% and 95% removal with bauxite and charcoal, respectively. Elemental analysis of adsorbents showed that the presence of phosphate and silica can cause a reduction of arsenic removal efficiency by activated alumina, bauxite and charcoal. This study has laid a foundation for further research on arsenic in the city of Lahore and has also provided suitable techniques for arsenic removal.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.11-16
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• 2010

Methane hydrate is crystalline ice-like compounds which formed methane gas enters within water molecules composed cavity and each other from physically-bond at specially temperature and pressure condition. $1m^3$ of methane hydrate can be decomposed into the maximum of $216m^3$ of methane gas under standard condition. If these characteristics of hydrate are utilized in the opposite sense, natural gas can be fixed into water in the form of a hydrate solid. Therefore the use of hydrate is considered to be a great way to transport and store natural gas in large quantity. However, when methane hydrate is formed artificially, the amount of gas that is consumed is relatively low, due to the slow reaction rate between water and methane gas. Therefore for practical purposes in the application, the present investigation focuses on increasing the amount of gas consumed by adding chemically oxidized OMWCNTs to pure water. The results show that when 0.003 wt% of oxidation multi-walled carbon nanotubes was added to pure water, the amount of gas consumed was almost four times more than that of pure water indicating its effect in hydrate formation and the hydrate formation time decreased at alow subcooling temperature.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.44 no.6
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• pp.264-268
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• 2011

The Molybedenium thin film is generally used on back contact material of CIGS solar cell due to low electrical resistivity and stable thermal expansion coefficient. The Mo thin films deposited on si wafer by the magnetron sputtering method. The research focused on the variation of electrical resistivity of films which deposited with various working pressure at the target power of 2.0 kW(8.4 W/). The lowest resistivity of Mo thin film showed $9.0{\mu}O$-cm at pressure of 1.5 mTorr. However, working pressure increasing up to 50 mTorr, resistivities were highly increased. The results showed that the conductivity of Mo films depended on growing structures and defects in deposition process. Surface morphology, porosity, grain size, oxidation, and bonding structures were analysed by SEM, AFM, spectroscopic ellipsometry (SE), XRD, and XPS.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2012.08a
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• pp.413-413
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• 2012

Lead sulfide (PbS) Colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) are promising material for the photovoltaic device due to its various outstanding properties such as tunable band-gap, solution processability, and infrared absorption. More importantly, PbS CQDs have large exciton Bohr radius of 20 nm due to the uniquely large dielectric constants that result in the strong quantum confinement. To exploit desirable properties in photovoltaic device, it is essential to fabricate a device exhibiting stable performance. Unfortunately, the performance of PbS NQDs based Schottky solar cell is considerably degraded according to the exposure in the air. The air-exposed degradation originates on the oxidation of interface between PbS NQDS layer and metal electrode. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the stability of Schottky junction device by inserting a passivation layer. We investigate the effect of insertion of passivation layer on the performance of Schottky junction solar cells using PbS NQDs with band-gap of 1.3 eV. Schottky solar cell is the simple photovoltaic device with junction between semiconducting layer and metal electrode which a significant built-in-potential is established due to the workfunction difference between two materials. Although the device without passivation layer significantly degraded in several hours, considerable enhancement of stability can be obtained by inserting the very thin LiF layer (<1 nm) as a passivation layer. In this study, LiF layer is inserted between PbS NQDs layer and metal as an interface passivation layer. From the results, we can conclude that employment of very thin LiF layer is effective to enhance the stability of Schottky junction solar cells. We believe that this passivation layer is applicable not only to the PbS NQDs based solar cell, but also the various NQDs materials in order to enhance the stability of the device.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.157.1-157.1
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• 2016

In this work, we experimentally investigated the solar absorption performance of Cu-based scalable nanostructured surfaces and compared their performance with the conventional TiNOX. We fabricated Cu-based nanostructured surfaces with a controlled chemical oxidation process applicable to a large area or complex geometry. We optimized the process parameters including the chemical compounds, dipping time and process temperature. We conducted both lab-scale and outdoor experiments to characterize the conversion efficiency of each absorber surfaces with single and double glazing setup. Lab-scale experiment was conducted with $50mm{\times}50mm$ absorber sample with 1-sun condition (1kW/m2) using a solar simulator (PEC-L01) with measuring the temperature at the absorber plate, cover glass, air gap and ambient. From the lab-scale experiment, we obtained ${\sim}91^{\circ}C$ and $94^{\circ}C$ for CuO and TiNOX surfaces after 1 hr of solar illumination at single glazing, respectively. To measure the absorber performance at actual operating condition, outdoor experiment was also conducted using $110mm{\times}110mm$ absorber sample. We measured the solar flux with thermopile detector (919P-040-50). From outdoor experiment, we observed ${\sim}123^{\circ}C$ and $131^{\circ}C$ for CuO and TiNOX with 0.6 kW/m2 insolation at double glazing, respectively. We showed that the suggested nanostructured CuO solar absorber has near-equivalent collection efficiency compared with the state-of-the-art TiNOX surfaces even with much simpler manufacturing process that does not require an expensive equipment.

• Nutrition Research and Practice
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.629-634
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• 2016

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: The aim of this experiments was to show anti-obesity effects of Korean solar salt from different salt fields in diet-induced obese mice. MATERIALS/METHODS: Diet-induced obesity (DIO) was induced by a high-fat diet (HFD; 45% cal from fat) in C57BL/6J mice for eight weeks. The mice were fed with the designated diets (chow diet for Normal, HFD for Control, 0.47%-salt-mixed HFD for purified salt (PS), Guerande solar salt from France (SS-G), solar salt from Y salt field (SS-Y), solar salts from T salt field (SS-T) and S salt field (SS-S)) for another eight weeks. We checked body weight, food efficiency ratio (FER) and tissue weights (liver and epididymal adipose tissue (EAT)), and observed serum concentrations of triacylglycerol (TG), total cholesterol (TC), leptin and insulin. We also evaluated gene expressions of adipogenic / lipogenic mRNAs of $C/EBP{\alpha}$, $PPAR{\gamma}$ and FAS and beta-oxidation-related factors ($PPAR{\alpha}$ and CPT-1) in liver and EAT. The mineral composition of salt samples were analyzed using inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES). RESULTS: SS-T and SS-S significantly reduced body weight gain, FER, and weight of EAT compared to control and other samples (P < 0.05). SS-T and SS-S also significantly decreased serum levels of TG, TC, leptin and insulin (P < 0.05). SS-T and SS-S suppressed expressions of adipogenic / lipogenic mRNAs in liver and EAT, while promoting expression of beta-oxidation-related factors. The lowest sodium concentration was observed in SS-T ($30.30{\pm}0.59%$), and the lowest sodium-to-potassium (Na/K) ratio was found in SS-S (17.81). CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that well-processed Korean solar salt may have anti-obesity effects in vivo, probably owing to its differences in mineral composition and other components, presumably resulting from the manufacturing processes. Further research is needed into the mechanism and to explore optimal manufacturing processes.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.286-290
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• 2010

C-1 compounds are observed in anaerobic sediment of high salt environments. Thus, surface sediments and waters from these environments are therefore potential habitats for aerobic methylotrophic microorganisms. The soil samples collected from saltern and tidal flat as inoculums and methanol as carbon and energy source was supplied. After subculture depending on the salt concentration, methanol oxidizing bacteria growth condition investigated, the results of methanol oxidizing bacteria can grow in salt conditions, and the maximum concentration was 20%. Analysis based on denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis of 16S rRNA genes indicates that Methelyophaga-like bacteria were dominants of methylotrophs in the enrichment culture. Quantitative PCR showed that archaeal cells were about 1-10% of bacterial cells. Additionally archaea were assumed not to be involved in methanol oxidation since bacterial antibiotics completely blocked the methanol oxidation. Our results suggest that Methelyophaga-like bacteria could be involved in C-1 compounds oxidation in hypersaline environments although those activities are sensitive to salinity above 20%.