• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.194-196
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• 2005

A series of inorganic-organic hybrid membranes were prepared with a systematic variation of titanium dioxidenanoparticles content. Their liquid uptake, methanol permeability and proton conductivity as a function of inoranic oxide content were investigated. The results obtained show that the inorganic oxide network decreases the proton conductivity and liquid uptake. It is also found that increase in inorganic oxide content leads to decrease of methanol permeability. In terms of the morphology, membranes are homogeneous and exhibit a good adhesion between inorganic domains and the polymer matrix. The properties of the composite membranes are compared with the standard nafion membrane.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.177-180
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• 2005

A series of inorganic-organic hybrid membranes were prepared with a systematic variation of titanium dioxide nano particles content. Their liquid uptake, methanol permeability and proton conductivity as a function of inorganic oxide content were investigated. The results obtained show that the inorganic oxide network decreases the proton conductivity and liquid uptake. It is also found that increase in inorganic oxide content leads to decrease of methanol permeability. In terms of the morphology, membranes are homogeneous and exhibit a good adhesion between inorganic domains and the polymer matrix. The properties of the composite membranes are compared with the standard nafion membrane.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.514-520
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• 2005

Composite membranes of Nafion and sulfonated poly(arylene ether sulfone) were prepared. Sulfonated poly(arylene ether sulfone)s with different degrees of sulfonation were blended with Nafion to reduce the methanol crossover. The morphology, proton conductivity and methanol permeability of the resulting composite membranes were investigated by SEM, EDAX, AC impedance spectroscopy and permeability measuring instrument. The cross­sections of the composite membranes showed a phase separated morphology. The morphology and phase separation mechanism could be controlled by varying the blend ratio and the degree of sulfonation of poly(arylene ether sulfone). These complex morphologies can be applied for reducing methanol crossover. The methanol permeability and proton conductivity of the composite membranes were lower than those of Nafion 117 membrane since the development of an ionic pathway in the blend membrane was more difficult than that in Nafion itself.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.219-233
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• 2009

Mobile devices in the next generation such as camera, cell phone, network, Note PC, etc. require higher power and energy sources due to convergences of various functions. Direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) has been focused as an attractive power source, but there are critical issues involved in its commercialization with regard to the core technologies of materials, components, and system. The requirements of key technologies are differentiated from applications and fuel supply methods. Here, the roles of the proton-conducting membrane are discussed and the current status of DMFC systems is discussed in terms of proton conductivity, methanol permeability, and water management. Materials such as perfluorinated and partially fluorinated membranes, hydrocarbon membranes, composite membranes, and other modified ionomers have been studied. These would explain the critical issues of DMFC and the role of membranes for commercialization.

• Korean Journal of Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Engineering
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• v.28 no.9
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• pp.367-372
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• 2016

Gas diffusion layer (GDL) of PEMFCs plays a role that it diffuses the reactant gases to the catalyst layer on the membrane and discharge water from the catalyst layer to the channel. Physical parameters related to the mass transport of GDL are mostly from the uncompressed GDLs while actual GDLs in the assembled stacks are compressed. In this study, the relation of compression and strain of GDLs with various Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) loading is measured experimentally and In-plane gas permeability is measured at the condition that the GDLs are in compressive strain. The gas permeability decreased with the loading of PTFE and the presentation of gas permeability under compressive stain is expected to improve the accuracy of modeling work of mass transport in the GDL.

• Polymer(Korea)
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• v.34 no.6
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• pp.540-546
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• 2010

In this manuscript, in order to reduce methanol permeability and, at the same time, to increase proton conductivity THS-PSA containing silica compound, responsible for methanol permeability reduction, and sulfonic acid, responsible for proton conductivity enhancement, was applied onto PVA/PSSA-MA membranes. And in order to improve durability, the resulting membranes, PVA/PSSAMA/THS-PSA, were exposed to 500ppm F2 gas at varying reaction times. The surface-fluorinated membranes were characterized through the measurement of contact angles, thermo-gravimetric analysis, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy to observe the physico-chemical changes. For the evaluation of the electro-chemical changes in the resulting membranes, its water contents, ion exchange capacity, proton conductivity, and methanol permeability were measured and then compared with the commercial membrane, Nafion 115. Finally, the membran electrode assembly(MEA) was prepared and the cell voltage against the current density was measured. As fluorination time increased, the contents of F2 increased up to maximum 4.3% and to depth of 50 nm. At 60 min of fluorination, the proton conductivity was 0.036 S/cm, larger than Nafion 115 at 0.024 S/cm, and the methanol permeability was $9.26E-08cm^2/s$, less than Nafion 115 at $1.17E-06cm^2/s$.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.412-417
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• 2007

In the present study, crosslinked poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) membranes were prepared at different temperatures using poly(styrene sulfonic acid-co-maleic acid) (PSSA_MA) (PVA:PSSA_MA = 1:9). The hybrid mem-branes were prepared by varying the TEOS content between 5 and 30 wt%. The PSSA_MA was used both as a crosslinking agent and the hydrophilic group donor ($-SO_3H$ and/or-COOH). The proton conductivity increased with up to 20 wt% TEOS, but decreased above this level, although the water content decreased with increasing TEOS content. This result suggests that the silica doped into the membrane improved the formation of proton-conduction pathways due to the absorption of molecular water. The PVA/PSSA_MA/Silica containing TEOS 20% showed both high proton conductivity (0.026 S/cm at $90^{\circ}C$) and low methanol permeability ($5.55{\times}10^{-7}cm^2/s$).

• Proceedings of the Polymer Society of Korea Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.270-270
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• 2006

We have prepared polymer electrolyte membranes (PEMs) for DMFC from polymer mixture of poly(vinyl alcohol) and poly(vinyl alcohol-co-2-acrylamido-2-methylpropane sulfonic acid) (AP-2) changing the AP-2 content. The proton conductivity(${\Box}$) and methanol permeability(P) of the PEMs increase with increasing AP-2 content because the water content of the PEMs increases with increasing AP-2 content. The proton permselectivity of the PEMs, which is defined as ${\Box}={\Box}/P$, indicates higher values than that of $Nafion{(R)}$117.

• Journal of the Microelectronics and Packaging Society
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• v.11 no.4 s.33
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• pp.69-73
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• 2004

A series of $H_3PO_4$-doped composite membranes based on poly(vinyl alcohol)(PVA) and silica have been prepared by sol-gel process. The proton conductivity, as well as properties of swelling, methanol permeation, was measured in this study. The proton conductivity increased with the molar ratio of $H_3PO_4$ to silica. With the silica content increasing, swelling degree decreased and methanol permeability showed a slight increase. It suggested that the former was mainly determined by hydrophilicity of the membrane, while the latter was dominated by the interconnectivity of matrix. According to the value of on, the optimal conformations of these composite membranes were 60, 70, 80 wt.$\%$ of PS-x in membranes, where x were 1.5, 1.0, and 0.5, respectively. These composite membranes were thermal stability up to $200^{\circ}C$.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2004.05a
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• pp.29-32
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• 2004

Reduction of methanol crossover in proton exchange membranes (PEMs) can be achieved by 1) the selection of materials, 2) the morphology control, and 3) the adequate crosslinking [1, 2]. The selection of polymer matrix of PEM for direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) is very important because the proton conductivity and methanol permeability are largely dependent upon the properties of polymers.(omitted)