• Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry
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• v.67
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• pp.52-71
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• 2018

RO membranes, the core elements for RO process formed using polyamide, have found prominent space in membrane technology. RO membranes with better application perspective could be achieved by precise controlling the kinetics of IP reaction and surface modification strategy. Despite huge progresses, great challenges still exist in trade-off between flux, rejections and fouling. More works are necessary to enhance the performance and stability of RO membranes via surface modification. Further insights into the use of natural monomers are necessary. It is anticipated that this article can provide clues for further in-depth evaluation and research in exploring more advanced RO membranes.

• Journal of the Korean Electrochemical Society
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.68-73
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• 2002

Modified polymer electrolyte membranes were fabricated by the applying dc magnetron sputter-deposited Pd thin layers on the surface of the $Nafion^{TM}$ membranes in argon atmosphere. The Pd thin films were characterized by investigating its morphology, methanol permeability, and protonic conductivity. The performance of a direct methanol fuel cell(DMFC) with the modifed polymer electrolyte membrane was also tested by the measurement of its currents and voltages under flowing methanol. The Pd thin film could be a barrier layer to methanol crossover, but the protonic conductivity of the modified polymer membrane was reduced. By using the modified polymer eletrolyte membranes, both the methanol permeability and the protonic conductivity were decreased with increasing the thickness of Pd thin film. However, the performances of DMFC were almost independent on the thickness of Pd thim films. The efffcts of methanol concentration in a feeding fuels on the protonic conductivity and the cell performance were also investigated.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.16-34
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• 2021

Water supplies are decreasing in comparison to increasing clean water demands. Using nanofiltration is one of the most effective and economical methods to meet the need for clean water. Common methods for desalination are reverse osmosis and nanofiltration. However, pristine membranes lack the essential features which are, stability, economic efficiency, antibacterial and antifouling performances. To enhance the properties of the pristine membranes, graphene oxide (GO) is a promising and widely researched material for thin film composites (TFC) membrane due to their characteristics that help improve the hydrophilicity and anti-fouling properties. Modification of the membrane can be done on different layers. The thin film composite membranes are composed of three different layers, the top filtering active thin polyamide (PA) layer, supporting porous layer, and supporting fabric. Forward osmosis (FO) process is yet another energy efficient desalination process, but its efficiency is affected due to biofouling. Incorporation of GO enhance antibacterial properties leading to reduction of biofilm formation on the membrane surface. Pressure retarded osmosis (PRO) is an excellent process to generate clean energy from sea water and the biofouling of membrane is reduced by introduction of GO into the active layer of the TFC membrane. Different modifications on the membranes are being researched, each modification with its own advantages and disadvantages. In this review, modifications of nanofiltration membranes and their composites, characterization, and performances are discussed.

• Membrane Journal
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.406-414
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• 2017

In this study, we have developed pore-filled ion-exchange membranes (PFIEMs) filled with ionomer in a thin polyethylene porous film (thickness = $25{\mu}m$) and investigated the charge-discharge characteristics of the all vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) employing them. Especially, the degree of crosslinking and free volume of the PFIEMs were appropriately controlled to produce ion-exchange membranes exhibiting both the low membrane resistance and low vanadium permeability by mixing crosslinking agents having different molecular size. As a result, the prepared PFIEMs exhibited excellent electrochemical properties which are comparable to those of the commercial membranes. Also, it was confirmed through the experiments of vanadium ion permeability and VRFB performance evaluation that the PFIEMs showed low vanadium ion permeability and high charge-discharge efficiency in comparison with the commercial membrane despite their thin film thickness.

• Korean Membrane Journal
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.48-55
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• 2000

In order to improve organic vapor separation efficiency of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane, various zeolites (zeolite 4A, zeolite 13X and natural zeolite) were introduced into a thin PDMS film. The measurements of permeability and selectivity of zeolite-filled PDMS membranes were carried out with a CO$_2$gas and a CO$_2$gas/acetic acid vapor mixture, respectively. The CO$_2$permeability of zeolite-filled membranes decreased with increasing zeolite content and then recovered up to 30 wt% content. The effect of zeolite type on the improvement of CO$_2$permeability was found to be in the order of zeolite 13X > natural zeolite > 4A. The CO$_2$selectivity of zeolite-filled membranes was enhanced up to 9 times compared with the selectivity of a pure (unfilled) PDMS membrane. The effect of zeolite type on the improvement of CO$_2$selectivity was found to be in the order of natural zeolite > zeolite 13X > zeolite 4A.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.16 no.7
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• pp.590-595
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• 2008

The pressure driven membrane process has been a breakthrough in the removal of pollutants from drinking water. These experiments examined the removal of chlorophenol compounds from water using low pressure membranes. The removal performance of the membranes was based primarily on size exclusion. Apart from size exclusion, the polarity and pKa of the compounds also influences the membrane performance. The molecular size and dipole moments of the respective molecules were calculated using a quantum chemical method. The rejection of pollutants also followed the same trend as salt rejection by the membranes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.423.1-423.1
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• 2016

Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) has drawn much attention due to its many advantages. PVDF shows high mechanical strength and flexibility, thermal stability, and good piezoelectricity enabling its application to various fields such as sensors, actuators, and energy transducers. Further studies have been conducted on PVDF in the form of thin films. The thin films exhibit different ionic conductivity according to the number of pores within the film, letting these films to be applied as electrolytes or separators of batteries. Porous PVDF membranes are also easily processed, usually made by using electrospinning. However, a large portion of researches were conducted using PVDF membranes produced by far field electrospinning, which is not a well-controlled experimental method. In this paper, we use near field electrospinning (NFES) process for more controlled, small-scaled, mesh type PVDF structures of nano to micro fibers fabricated by controlling process parameters and investigate the properties of such membranous structures. These membranes vary according to geometrical shape, pore density, and fiber thickness. We then measured the mechanical strength and piezoelectric characteristic of the structures. With various geometries in the fiber structures and various scales in the fibers, these types of structures can potentially lead to broader applications for stretchable electronics and dielectric electro active polymers.

• Journal of Korean Society of Water and Wastewater
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.553-559
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• 2016

There has been increasing global interest in the environmental pollution problems produced by fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. In order to tackle these issues, new renewable energy such as solar, wind, bio gas, fuel cell and pressure retarded osmosis(PRO) have been developed extensively. Among these energy sources, PRO is one of the salinity gradient power generation methods. In PRO, energy is obtained by the osmotic pressure generated from the concentration difference between high and low concentration solutions separated by a semipermeable membrane. The development for high power density PRO membranes is imperative with the purpose of commercialization. This study investigates development of thin film composite PRO membrane and spiral wound module for high power density. Also, the influence of membrane backing layer on power density was identified, and the characteristic factors of PRO membranes was determined. Different backing layers were used to improve power density. As expected, the PRO membrane with more porous backing layer showed higher power density.

• Proceedings of the Membrane Society of Korea Conference
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• 2004.05b
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• pp.82-85
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• 2004

Flux-enhancement mechanism of thin-film-composite (TFC) membranes for the reverse comosis (RO) process was newly explained by positron annihilation lifetime spectroscopy (PALS) that has been found to be applied for detecting molecular vacancies or pores having sizes that are equivalent to salt or hydrate ions in RO membrane.(omitted)

• Membrane and Water Treatment
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.381-385
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• 2019

Surface modification is very efficient and scalable approach to achieve improved membrane performance. We treated Reverse Osmosis Thin Film Composite (TFC RO) membrane with various concentrations of Polyethylene Glycol (PEG), a hydrophilic polymer after activation with sodium hypochlorite. This treatment resulted in an increment of the water flux by 43% and the salt rejection by 2.36% for the 3000 mg/l PEG-treated membrane. Further, these PEG-treated membranes were exposed to a mixture of 3000 mg/l PEG and 1000 mg/l sodium hypochlorite for 1 hour. Further modification of this membrane by PEG and sodium hypochlorite mixture increased the water permeance up to 133% when compared with the virgin TFC RO membrane. We characterized the treated membranes to understand the changes in wettability by contact angle analysis, changes in surface morphology and roughness by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM) analysis.