Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) is one of key elements to determine both electrochemical performances and lifetimes of fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). PEM is exposed to a variety of dynamic stimuli (e.g., temperature, humidity, pressure, fuel gases and so on) under their operation conditions and meets unavoidable mechanical damages derived from unequal pressure difference between anode and cathode feed gases. Even though there have been approaches to evaluate the mechanical strength of PEM materials, most of the trials could provide static information on their mechanical strength. In this study, a pressure-loaded blister hybrid system connected with gas chromatography was developed to disclose the efficacy of the system as an evaluation tool of dynamic PEM strength under realistic FCEV operation conditions.

Perfluorinated sulfonic acid (PFSA) ionomers such as Nafion® and 3M ionomers have been used as polymer electrolyte membrane materials for fuel cells owing to their excellent chemical inertness, and high proton conductivity. The membrane characteristics are highly affected by their fabrication history as well as chemical structure. It is important to choose appropriate solvents for membrane preparation, since a relatively low solubility of PFSA ionomers may result in fairly different morphological features, which influence the transport behavior of small molecules such as proton and water through the resulting membranes. In this study, PFSA membranes are prepared using a variety of solvents with different properties and their fundamental characteristics and morphologies are compared each other.

A key element of environmentally friendly electric vehicles (EVs) based on polymer electrolyte fuel cells (PEFCs) and lithium ion batteries (LIBs) is an ion-selective membrane, which can transport specific ions such as proton and lithium ions, and provide mechanical and chemical resistances. The state-of-the art membranes for PEFCs and LIBs are perfluorinated sulfonic acid ionomer reinforced membranes and ceramic-coated polyolefin separators, respectively. In spite of the improvement of membranes characteristics, additional membrane modifications are still needed to improve electrochemical cell performances and to extend their lifetime. In this presentation, several plausible approaches to improve membrane characteristics are introduced.

Oxide semiconductors Thin-film transistors are an exemplified one owing to its excellent ambient stability and optical transparency. In particular zinc oxide (ZnO) has been reported because It has stability in air, a high electron mobility, transparency and low light sensitivity, compared to any other materials. For this reasons, ZnO TFTs have been studied actively. Furthermore, we expected that would be satisfy the demands of flexible display in new generation. In order to do that, ZnO TFTs must be fabricated that flexible substrate can sustain operating temperature. So, In this paper we have studied low-temperature process of zinc oxide(ZnO) thin-film transistors (TFTs) based on silicon nitride (SiNx)/cross-linked poly-vinylphenol (C-PVP) as gate dielectric. TFTs based on oxide fabricated by Low-temperature process were similar to electrical characteristics in comparison to conventional TFTs. These results were in comparison to device with SiNx/low-temperature C-PVP or SiNx/conventional C-PVP. The ZnO TFTs fabricated by low-temperature process exhibited a field-effect mobility of 0.205 cm2/Vs, a thresholdvoltage of 13.56 V and an on/off ratio of 5.73×106. As a result, We applied experimental for flexible PET substrate and showed that can be used to ZnO TFTs for flexible application.

본 논문에서는 용액 공정을 이용한 고분자 절연층을 갖는 top-gate 구조의 펜타센 박막 트랜지스터(Thin Film Transistor, TFT)의 특성을 연구하였다. Top-gate 구조의 펜타센 TFT 제작에 앞서 유기 반도체인 펜타센의 결정성 성장을 돕기 위해서 가교된 PVP (cross-linked poly(4-vinylphenol))를 유리 기판 상에 스핀 코팅을 이용하여 형성한 후, 노광 공정을 통해 니켈/은 구조를 갖는 채널 길이 10μm의 소오스, 드레인 전극을 형성하였다. 그리고 열 증착을 이용하여 60 nm 두께의 펜타센 층을 성막하였고, 고분자 절연체로서 PVA(polyvinyl alchol) 또는 가교된 PVA를 용액공정인 스핀 코팅을 이용하여 형성한 후 열 증착으로 알루미늄 게이트 전극을 성막하였다. 이로써 제작된 소자들의 전기적 특성을 확인한 결과 가교된 PVA를 사용한 펜타센 TFT 보다 PVA를 게이트 절연체로 사용한 소자가 전기적 특성이 우수한 것으로 관찰되었다. 이는 PVA의 가교 공정에 의한 펜타센 박막의 성능 퇴화에 기인한 것으로 사료된다. 실험 결과 0.9μm 두께의 PVA 게이트 절연막을 사용한 top-gate 구조의 펜타센 TFT의 전계 효과 이동도와 문턱전압, 그리고 전류 점멸비는 각각, 약 3.9×10-3 cm2/Vs, -11.5 V, 3×105으로써 본 연구에서 제안된 소자가 용액 공정형 top-gate 유기 TFT 소자로서 우수한 성능을 나타냄을 알 수 있었다.

During the intramedullary nailing procedure, surgeons feel difficulty in manipulation of the X-ray device to align it to axes of nailing holes and suffer from the large radiation exposure from the X-ray device. These problems are caused by the fact the surgeon cannot see the hole’s location directly and should use the X-ray device to find the hole’s location and direction. In this paper, we proposed the robotic guidance of the distal screwing using an optical tracking system. To track the location of the hole for the distal screwing, the reference marker is attached to the proximal end of an intramedullary nail. To guide the drill’s direction robustly, the 6-degree-of-freedom robotic arm is used. The robotic arm is controlled so as to align the drill guiding tool attached the robotic arm with the obtained the hole’s location. For the safety, the robot’s linear and angular velocities are restricted to the predefined values. The experimental results using the artificial bones showed that the position error and the orientation error were 0.91 mm and 1.64°, respectively. The proposed method is simple and easy to implement, thus it is expected to be adopted easily while reducing the radiation exposure significantly.