Cobalt coated tungsten carbide-cobalt composite powder has been prepared through wet chemical reduction method. The cobalt sulfate solution was converted to the cobalt chloride then the cobalt hydroxide. The tungsten carbide powders were added in to the cobalt hydroxide, the cobalt hydroxide was reduced and coated over tungsten carbide powder using hypo-phosphorous acid. Both the cobalt and the tungsten carbide phase peaks were evident in the tungsten carbide-cobalt composite powder by X-ray diffraction. The average particle size measured via scanning electron microscope, particle size analysis was around 380 nm and the thickness of coated cobalt was determined to be 30~40 nm by transmission electron microscopy.
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The 304 stainless steel powders were prepared by high energy ball milling and subsequently sintered by spark plasma sintering, and the microstructural characteristics and micro-hardness were investigated. The initial size of the irregular shaped 304 stainless steel powders was approximately 42 μm. After high energy ball milling at 800 rpm for 5h, the powders became spherical with a size of approximately 2 μm, and without formation of reaction compounds. From TEM analysis, it was confirmed that the as-milled powders consisted of the aggregates of the nano-sized particles. As the sintering temperature increased from 1073K to 1573K, the relative density and micro-hardness of sintered sample increased. The sample sintered at 1573K showed the highest relative density of approximately 95% and a micro-hardness of 550 Hv.
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A high temperature dilatometer attached to a graphite furnace is built and used to study the sintering behavior of B4C. Pristine and carbon doped B4C compacts are sintered at various soaking temperatures and their shrinkage profiles are detected simultaneously using the dilatometer. Carbon additions enhance the sinterability of B4C with sintering to more than 97% of the theoretical density, while pristine B4C compacts could not be sintered above 91% due to particle coarsening. The shrinkage profiles of B4C reveal that the effect of carbon on the sinterability of B4C can be seen mostly below 1950°C. The high temperature dilatometer delivers very useful information which is impossible to obtain with conventional furnaces.
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Flake-like LiCoO2 nanopowders were fabricated using electrospinning. To investigate their formation mechanism, field-emssion scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were carried out. Among various parameters of electrospinning, we controlled the molar concentration of the precursor and the PVP polymer. When the molar concentration of lithium and cobalt was 0.45 M, the morphology of LiCoO2 nanopowders was irregular and round. For 1.27 M molar concentration, the LiCoO2 nanopowders formed with flake-like morphology. For the PVP polymer, the molar concentration was set to 0.011 mM, 0.026 mM, and 0.043 mM. Irregular LiCoO2 nanopowders were formed at low concentration (0.011 mM), while flake-like LiCoO2 were formed at high concentration (0.026 mM and 0.043 mM). Thus, optimized molar concentration of the precursor and the PVP polymer may be related to the successful formation of flake-like LiCoO2 nanopowders. As a results, the synthesized LiCoO2 nanopowder can be used as the electrode material of Li-ion batteries.
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In this study, an aluminum oxide layer for sealing treatment of nano-diamond powder was synthesized by anodizing under constant current. The produced pore size and oxide thickness were investigated using scanning electron microscopy. The pore size increased as the treatment time increased, current density increased, sulfuric acid concentration decreased, which is different from the results under constant voltage, due to a dissolution of the oxide layers. The oxide layer thickness by the anodizing increased as temperature, time, and current density increased. The results of this study can be applied to optimize the sealing treatment process of nano-diamond particles of 4-10 nm to enhance the resistances of corrosion and wear of the matrix.
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Pt has been widely used as catalyst for fuel cell and exhausted gas clean systems due to its high catalytic activity. Recently, there have been researches on fabricating composite materials of Pt as a method of reducing the amount of Pt due to its high price. One of the approaches for saving Pt used as catalyst is a core shell structure consisting of Pt layer on the core of the non-noble metal. In this study, the synthesis of Pt shell was conducted on the surface of TiO2 particle, a non-noble material, by applying ultraviolet (UV) irradiation. Anatase TiO2 particles with the average size of 20~30 nm were immersed in the ethanol dissolved with Pt precursor of H2PtCl6∙6H2O and exposed to UV irradiation with the wavelength of 365 nm. It was confirmed that Pt nano-particles were formed on the surface of TiO2 particles by photochemical reduction of Pt ion from the solution. The morphology of the synthesized Pt@TiO2 nano-composite was examined by TEM (Transmission Electron Microscopy).
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The automotive industry is moving from the internal combustion engine to electric drive motors. Electric motors uses a high voltage system requiring the development of resources and components to shield the system. Therefore, in this study, we analyze electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding effectiveness (SE) characteristics of an auto crash pad according to the ratio of electrically conductive materials and propylene. In order to combine good mechanical characteristics and electromagnetic shielding of the automotive crash pad, metal-coated glass fiber (MGF) manufacturing methods are introduced and compared with powder-type methods. Through this study, among MGF methods, we suggest that the chopping method is the most effective shielding method.
Cathode materials and their precursors are prepared with transition metal solutions recycled from the the waste lithium-ion batteries containing NCM (nickel-cobalt-manganese) cathodes by a H2 and C-reduction process. The recycled transition metal sulfate solutions are used in a co-precipitation process in a CSTR reactor to obtain the transition metal hydroxide. The NCM cathode materials (Ni:Mn:Co=5:3:2) are prepared from the transition metal hydroxide by calcining with lithium carbonate. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy analyses show that the cathode material has a layered structure and particle size of about 10 μm. The cathode materials also exhibited a capacity of about 160 mAh/g with a retention rate of 93~96% after 100 cycles.
In this study, we report the sintering behavior and properties of a Ge2Sb2Te5 alloy powders for use as a sputtering target by spark plasma sintering. The effect of various sintering parameters, such as pressure, temperature and time, on the density and hardness of the target has been investigated in detail. Structural characterization was performed by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Hardness and thermal properties were measured by differential scanning calorimetry and micro-vickers hardness tester. The density and hardness of the sintered Ge2Sb2Te5 materials were 5.8976~6.3687 g/cm3 and 32~75 Hv, respectively.
Fundamental experiences have been studied for development of pre-treatment process of Sn by-products such as solders. Dry and wet separation/recovery processes were considered by the differences of physical properties. The by-products, which are analyzed by solder metal and oxides. The metal and oxide were simply separated by dry ball-milling process for 12 hours, after that recovery metal powder might be reusable as lead or lead-free solders. In terms of wet separation process, samples were dissolved in HNO3 + H2O2 and the precipitation were analyzed by SnO2. Overall efficiency of recovery might be increasing via developing simple pre-treatment process.
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