Transition metal oxide-based materials have mainly been studied as electrodes for energy storage devices designed to meet essential energy demands. Among transition metal oxide-based materials, hydrated vanadium pentoxide (V2O5 ‧ nH2O), a vanadium oxide material, has demonstrated great electrochemical performance in the electrodes of energy storage devices. Graphene oxide (GO), a carbon-based material with high surface area and high electrical conductivity, has been added to V2O5 ‧ nH2O to compensate for its low electrical conductivity and structural instability. Here, V2O5 ‧ nH2O/GO nanobelts are manufactured with water without adding acid to ensure that the GO is uniformly dispersed, using a microwave-assisted hydrothermal synthesis. The resulting V2O5 ‧ nH2O/GO nanobelts exhibited a high specific capacitance of 206 F/g and more stable cycling performance than V2O5 ‧ nH2O without GO. The drying conditions of the carbon paper electrodes also resulted in more stable cycling performance when conducted at high vacuum and high temperature, compared with low vacuum and room temperature conditions. The improvement in electrochemical performance due to the addition of GO and the drying conditions of carbon paper electrodes indicate their great potential value as electrodes in energy storage devices.

Among efforts to improve techniques for the chemical vapor deposition of large-area and high-quality graphene films on transition metal substrates, being able to reliably transfer these atomistic membranes onto the desired substrate is a critical step for various practical uses, such as graphene-based electronic and photonic devices. However, the most used approach, the wet etching transfer process based on the complete etching of metal substrates, remains a great challenge. This is mainly due to the inevitable damage to the graphene, unintentional contamination of the graphene layer, and increased production cost and time. Here, we report the systematic study of an H2 bubbling-assisted transfer technique for graphene films grown on Cu foils, which is nondestructive not only to the graphene film but also to the Cu substrate. Also, we demonstrate the origin of the graphene film tearing phenomenon induced by this H2 bubbling-assisted transfer process. This study reveals that inherent features are produced by rolling Cu foil, which cause a saw-like corrugation in the poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA)/graphene stack when it is transferred onto the target substrate after the Cu foil is dissolved. During the PMMA removal stage, the graphene tearing mainly appears at the apexes of the corrugated PMMA/graphene stack, due to weak adhesion to the target substrate. To address this, we have developed a modified heat-press-assisted transfer technique that has much better control of both tearing and the formation of residues in the transferred graphene films.

In this paper, we study the applicability of Tuned Mass Damper(TMD) to improve seismic performance of piping system under earthquake loading. For this purpose, a mode analysis of the target pipeline is performed, and TMD installation locations are selected as important modes with relatively large mass participation ratio in each direction. In order to design the TMD at selected positions, each corresponding mode is replaced with a SDOF damped model, and accordingly the corresponding pipeline is converted into a 2-DOF system by considering the TMD as a SDOF damped model. Then, optimal design values of the TMD, which can minimize the dynamic amplification factor of the transformed 2-DOF system, are derived through GA optimization method. The proposed TMD design values are applied to the pipeline numerical model to analyze seismic performance with and without TMD installation. As a result of numerical analyses, it is confirmed that the directional acceleration responses, the maximum normal stresses and directional reaction forces of the pipeline system are reduced, quite a lot. The results of this study are expected to be used as basic information with respect to the improvement of the seismic performance of the piping system in the future.