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Tag: National Research Council of Science and Technology

  • Detection of Methanol Using a Soft Photonic Crystal Robot

    Detection of Methanol Using a Soft Photonic Crystal Robot

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    Newswise — Robots are currently employed in industrial sites and fields, including disaster rescue, medicine, security, and national defense. Conventional metal-based robots exert strong operating power due to rigid body construction with joints connected to actuators such as motors. However, they may have difficulty with flexible movements and can cause harm during malfunctions. Recently, ‘soft robots’ made of smooth and flexible materials have emerged, but they may be more difficult to control than metal-based robots.

    Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Seok Jin Yoon) announced that the research team composed of Dr. Dae-Yoon Kim of the Functional Composite Materials Research Center, Dr. Seung-Yeol Jeon of the Carbon Composite Materials Research Center, and Prof. Kwang-Un Jeong of the Department of Polymer-Nano Science and Technology at Jeonbuk National University (JBNU, President O Bong Yang) has succeeded in manufacturing a soft robot with a Janus structure, and developing a smart sensor for methanol detection. Excessive exposure to methanol may be fatal to humans and cause headaches, vomiting, dizziness, and visual disturbances. However, as methanol is more than 70% cheaper than ethanol, cases of misuse and abuse are increasing after COVID-19.

    Inspired by the free motions of mollusks such as the octopus, the research team adopted a method of allowing the movements of the soft robot to react spontaneously to the surrounding environment rather than controlling it with precise computing. By patterning two types of flexible polymer films with different expandability, the soft robot was allowed to move naturally in the desired direction according to the surrounding environment. Its motions include bending, folding, and twisting. In addition, a helicoidal nanostructure found in insects, such as butterflies, was introduced into soft robots, resulting in photonic crystal properties that selectively reflect the light of various colors. When the soft robot moves due to changes in the surrounding environment, the user can easily recognize this through color changes.

    The authors developed a sensor that can easily and quickly detect methanol contamination in water by applying the developed soft photonic crystal robot. The methanol detection sensor using the soft photonic crystal robot is economical because it can be reused many times. The robot does not require electricity to operate, so it can easily detect methanol in water in any location. Additionally, the circular polarization properties from the helicoidal nanostructure of the soft robot are difficult to forge and alter, so they are very effective in securing product reliability.

    Dr. Dae-Yoon Kim of KIST said: “This research has significance in implementing soft robots in everyday life. In the future, when multi-stimulus responsive materials capable of promptly and simultaneously responding to various external stimuli are developed, soft robots will be widely commercialized.”

     

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    KIST was established in 1966 as the first government-funded research institute in Korea. KIST now strives to solve national and social challenges and secure growth engines through leading and innovative research. For more information, please visit KIST’s website at https://eng.kist.re.kr/

    This research was conducted with the support of the K-Lab program of KIST and the Young Researcher Program of NRF. The research findings were published in ‘Advanced Functional Materials’ and selected as the frontispiece and hot topic in the field of robotics.

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  • KRICT has developed a breakthrough technology to achieve closed-loop recycling of textile wastes

    KRICT has developed a breakthrough technology to achieve closed-loop recycling of textile wastes

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    Newswise — The apparel industry accounts for 10% of global carbon emissions. The annual amount of fiber production reached 113 million tons in 2021* and the demand is increasing every year. However, almost 90% of post-consumer fiber wastes are disposed of through incineration or in landfills. Among these forms of waste, synthetic fiber has become a major threat to the environment and human health because, similar to other plastics, it is not biodegradable in nature. Owing to its low cost and durability, polyester is the most widely used synthetic fiber on the planet, accounting for more than half of all fabrics annually produced. Comprehensive recycling of polyester is thus a critical challenge for environmental sustainability and the health of future generations.

    *Source: Preferred Fiber & Materials Market Report 2022

    In practice, crude textile waste is not suitable for reuse or recycling because it is mixed with different fabric materials, colored by different dyes, and contaminated by various other impurities. Sorting it into homogeneous materials is necessary to make the waste recyclable by a chemical or mechanical method. To this end, the research team (P.I.: Dr. Joungmo Cho) in Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT) has developed a new chemical technology referred to as ‘chemical sorting’. This technology is applied to separate polyester from waste textiles that are disposed of in a mixed and contaminated form. In the process, a unique chemical compound, which selectively disrupts the chemical interaction between polyester and the dye used for its color, is used for the separation. The research team has also developed a new chemical recycling technology that consumes less energy than conventional methods to convert polyester into valuable monomers*, which can be repeatedly used for the synthesis of polymer materials.

    *monomer: a single molecular substance can react with other monomer molecules to form a polymer by chemical bonding

    Postconsumer clothes, made up of various materials with unknown compositions, are often discarded. They commonly comprise a variety of textiles such as cotton, wool, polyester, acrylic, nylon, elastane, and other blended fibers. Recycling cannot be achieved without sorting them into individual materials because of their incompatible chemical and physical properties. Industrially, the separation of individual materials from waste fabrics is accomplished by manual sorting, largely depending on human labor. This method has low accuracy and is unreliable and in turn fails to collect homogeneous materials, which is often critical for further steps of recycling. Recently, studies have been actively carried out to develop an automatic sorting machine, employing hyperspectral imaging technologies to acquire structural information of individual fabric targets. However, the sorting system still remains far from commercialization, mainly due to technical and economic barriers.

    The KRICT research team adopted an inexpensive and non-toxic biodegradable compound to chemically discriminate polyester from a mixture of waste fabrics. When the compound is applied to textiles. colorants only present in polyester are completely extracted while no significant changes occur in other materials. As a consequence, clean polyester can be separated from the mixture of colored fabrics. The method is applicable to select polyester from an uncolored fabric mixture as well. When uncolored fabric comes into contact with the waste colorants extracted from the sorting process, only polyester accepts the colorants while the other materials remain unchanged. As a consequence, the fabrics containing only polyester can be separated from mixed fabric waste in an inexpensive, accurate, and facile manner. The resulting sorted polyester can be used as clean feedstock for chemical recycling because the sorting method eliminates most organic impurities including intractable dyes.

    Chemical recycling, which converts polymer waste into the original building blocks, has potential to achieve circularity in recycling of polyester wastes whereas mechanical recycling can be used to produce only low quality material. In the conventional chemical recycling method, a high reaction temperature of above 200℃ is required to completely decompose polyester. Furthermore, energy-intensive purification steps are also inevitable in most commercial applications to obtain a high quality monomer product.

    The KRICT research team has developed a low-temperature glycolysis reaction system to convert chemically sorted waste polyester into pure bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terepthalate, which is an important building block monomer to produce new polymers. Monomer compounds obtained from the chemical recycling have quality equivalent to that derived from petroleum. Since the same compound as that used in ‘chemical sorting’ functions as an additive to lower the energy barrier of depolymerization, the reaction system can be easily and economically integrated with the chemical sorting technology for applications involving plastic or textile recycling where there is high demand for good product quality.

    Dr. Cho said, “Recently, the garment industry has utilized transparent and clean post-consumer PET bottles to produce recycled polyester clothes. However, this method is not sustainable because the material cannot be repeatedly recycled. In contrast, our current technology would not be limited by the complexity of the constituent materials or the initial level of impurity in the waste. Whether the targeted materials are derived from petroleum directly or recycled from waste, the technology can repeatedly process most post-consumer textile streams. Thus it will help reduce waste in landfills and substantially achieve a circular economy in the plastic and textile industries.”

    The chemical recycling technology has been licensed to Renew System Co., Ltd. (South Korea). Multidisciplinary R&D teams are now closely working together to build multi-scale facilities for the chemical recycling of waste clothing. A demonstration plant will be ready by the end of 2024 and commercial operation with an annual capacity of 10,000 tons is planned to start in 2025.

     

     

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    KRICT is a non-profit research institute funded by the Korean government. Since its foundation in 1976, KRICT has played a leading role to advance national chemical technologies in the fields of chemistry, material science, environmental science, and chemical engineering. Now, KRICT is moving forward to become a globally leading research institute tackling the most challenging issues in the field of Chemistry and Engineering and will continue to fulfill its role in developing chemical technologies that benefit the entire world and keep our earth healthy. More detailed information on KRICT can be found at https://www.krict.re.kr/eng/

    This study was supported by the Materials/Parts Technology Development Program funded by the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy (MOTIE, Republic of Korea) and by the Institutional Program of the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT). The research was published in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, volume 10 (51) and featured on the front cover of the volume.

    Credit: Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT)

    Usage Restrictions of Multimedia (Attachment File): The sources of photos and research results from KRICT must be specified

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  • Completion of a System of Robots that Use Teamwork to Pick Fruit and Transport Them All on Their Own!

    Completion of a System of Robots that Use Teamwork to Pick Fruit and Transport Them All on Their Own!

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    Newswise — A system of robots that harvest and transport crops on their own without human assistance has been developed for use in agricultural facilities such as smart farms.

    The research team under Choi Tae-yong, principal researcher at the AI Robot Research Division’s Department of Robotics and Mechatronics of the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (President Park Sang-jin, hereinafter referred to as KIMM), an institution under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and ICT, has developed a multiple-robot system for harvesting crops. This technology can be used to help at agricultural sites where there is a noticeable shortage of manpower by harvesting crops through an automated system. This system also includes robots that use autonomous driving technology to then transport the harvested crops to loading docks.

    KIMM’s new multiple-robot system for harvesting horticultural crops consists of harvesting robots and transfer robots. This technology is expected to help solve difficulties at agricultural sites, which are facing severe labor shortages recently, resulting in the inability to harvest crops after they have been farmed. By fully automating the harvesting and transporting processes of the entire farming facility, this technology demonstrates the possibility of unmanning not only harvesting, but also various other labor-intensive tasks at agricultural sites.

    Due to the complexity and high variability of the agricultural environment, an advanced level of skills is required when applying robot technologies. This is why research on robots for harvesting in facility farming has not been successful in proceeding past early levels of research. Previous robot technologies for harvesting crops were limited to implementing single crop harvesting functions.

    The KIMM’s newly developed multiple-robot system for harvesting crops is not only capable of harvesting, but also establishes multiple robot-based harvesting and transportation technologies to enable the automation of crop harvesting work for the entire farming facility. It consists of crop harvesting robots that harvest the crops and transfer robots that then transport the harvested crops to the back. There is no limit on the number of robot units, so it is possible to have multiple harvesting robots actively harvesting crops and multiple transfer robots transporting crops at the same time.

    The harvesting robots recognize crop information rapidly and precisely in facility farm settings by applying KIMM’s cutting-edge mechanical and AI technologies. These robots use robotic arms and high-powered robotic hands developed by KIMM to harvest tough crops without difficulty. The transport robots are also capable of precise autonomous driving in facility farm settings.

    The harvesting robots apply AI technology to recognize the location and shape of crops accurately, and the crops are then harvested using robotic hands that are specifically designed for harvesting. The harvesting robots are equipped with a box in which they then temporarily store the harvested crops. Once the box is filled to a certain point, a transport robot is called and the crops are transferred over for transport. Assuming a crop recognition rate of over 90% and 24-hour operations, the KIMM research team succeeded in developing crop harvesting with 80% efficiency compared to that of humans.

    KIMM principal researcher Choi Tae-yong stated that the newly developed multiple-robot system for harvesting crops marks the beginning of research to solve labor shortage problems in agricultural areas, which are gradually disappearing. He added that, moving forward, the KIMM team will continue to conduct research on performance and functional enhancement technologies that can be applied not only to indoor farming facilities, but also to various manual labor in outdoor environments, such as orchards.

    This research study was conducted as part of the “Advanced Agricultural Machinery Industrialization Technology Development Project”, operated by Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture and Forestry(IPET), under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Participants in the study included Hada Co., Ltd., the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Chungbuk National University, and Chungnam National University.

     

     

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    The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) is a non-profit government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT. Since its foundation in 1976, KIMM is contributing to economic growth of the nation by performing R&D on key technologies in machinery and materials, conducting reliability test evaluation, and commercializing the developed products and technologies.

    This research study was conducted as part of the “Advanced Agricultural Machinery Industrialization Technology Development Project”, operated by Korea Institute of Planning and Evaluation for Technology in Food, Agriculture and Forestry(IPET), under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

     

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  • Signals of the Future Detected by Artificial Intelligence

    Signals of the Future Detected by Artificial Intelligence

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    Newswise — Following the release of its Weak Signals in Future Technology report and Forecast Report on Weak Signals in Future Technology in Korean last year, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (President Kim Jaesoo, hereinafter KISTI) has published Emerging Weak Signals 2023 in Science and Technology, and English report on weak signals in science and technology with future potential detected using artificial intelligence.

    KISTI developed and released the findings on automated weak signal detection technology which uses data and algorithms to detect early signs of technology with potential for future growth last year. Weak signals- signals containing information about the future even though their significance remains yet to be seen in the present, are one way to explore technologies with potential for future growth. 

    With technological hegemony and economic recession intensifying globally, it is imperative to swiftly and accurately detect early signs of future technologies to actively establish a nation’s strategy for the future that hastens technological innovation and ensures autonomy in future technologies.

    In response to such demands of the times, KISTI has released the Emerging Weak Signals 2023 in Science and Technology report presenting 439 weak signals in 24 fields of science and technology, which were detected using its independenly developed automated weak signal detection technology. This is a quantitative increase from the 391 weak signals detected in the previous year.

    Also presented in the same report are findings on weak signal dynamics, comparing and analyzing changes and trends between weak signals in this report and those detected previously. The specific data presented are newborn weak signals appearing for the first time, weak signals that remained unchanged in the span of a year, and weak signals that were largely the same but partially changed in content from the previous year. Weak signal dynamics research will empower a more accurate understanding of the specific qualities of technologies with future potential, facilitating the establishment of a strategy on future technologies.

    The automated weak signal detection technology developed by KISTI monitors global innovation trends such as the accelerating digital transformation and changing technological and industrial ecosystems in real time, presenting information swiftly and accurately to enable continous horizon scanning※ for understanding the future. It is hoped that the technology will provide digital insights to a wide range of entities performing research on technology innovation.

    ※ Horizon scanning

    – A systematic methodology for detecting early signs and trends in new technologies and social issues that could potentially become threats or opportunities with great influence in the future

    – Conventionally utilizes expert discussions and qualitative analysis, but attempts to use big data and AI analysis have been growing recently

    – Horizon scanning is a necessary step in predicting the future and shaping policy, widely utilized in the EU, UK, U.S. and the OECD

     

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    – The Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information(KISTI) a non-profit government-funded institute to develop and support core sicence and technologt information resources and knowledge infrastructure and create an open, shared-data ecosystem, thereby contributing to the innovative growth of Korea and the quality of citizen’s lives.

    • Title of Report : Emerging Weak Signals 2023 in Science and Technology(KISTI Data Insight Report no.24)

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  • Safety Technology for Hydrogen Infrastructure in Underground Space

    Safety Technology for Hydrogen Infrastructure in Underground Space

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    Newswise — As an energy source that would help countries achieve carbon neutrality and energy security, hydrogen energy is being sought after globally as the energy source of the future. To this end, the European Union(EU) has introduced its strategy on hydrogen, implementing its plan to invest €470 billion(623 trillion Korean won) in 10 years to build a hydrogen-based society in the region. Germany, one of the most ardent supporters of global green initiatives, has put forward a national hydrogen strategy to invest a total of 1.2 trillion Korean won by 2030. The South Korean government is also investing in hydrogen city projects and infrastructure construction to inch closer to getting the hydrogen economy up and running.

    The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT, President Kim Byung-suk) announced its plan to develop technologies pertaining to the entire course of an underground hydrogen infrastructure project, from its design and construction to its operation and management. Such technologies would fundamentally improve the safety of hydrogen facilities. The construction of new infrastructure in the CBD area may bring a more efficient integration with other renewable energy networks and help the development of source technologies for hydrogen infrastructure construction, technologies for which South Korea has depended on sourcing from other advanced countries.

    Safe and reliable infrastructure is crucial to the establishment of a hydrogen ecosystem. However, any ground-level hydrogen facility project tends to face fierce opposition from local residents, and the alternative of building them peripherally makes the project less cost-effective and efficient.

    Dr. Kim Yangkyun of the Hydrogen-infrastructure Research Cluster at KICT has developed the core safety engineering technologies for building reliable hydrogen infrastructure underground along with an active control system to mitigate the impact of possible hydrogen leaks and blasts. The new system can help control the ambient hydrogen concentration within an underground facility at all times via forced ventilation and can reduce risk up to 80% compared with similar above-ground facilities thanks to the introduction of roof-type vents that minimize blast overpressure in times of an emergency.

    Basically, any underground hydrogen infrastructure is an enclosed space. All risks of a potential blast should be eliminated by keeping the ambient hydrogen concentration below the Lower Flammable Limit (LFL) whenever a leak occurs. The active control system that Dr. Kim Yangkyun’s research team proposed maintains the quality of the atmosphere of the enclosed space to a normal level and can prevent blast accidents at times of emergency hydrogen gas leaks. An optimized interpretation was used, including multiple factors (shape, location, intake, and outtake capacities of the inlet/outlet) to formulate the conditions for ordinary times and for an emergency where the concentration of hydrogen gas in the facility is kept below the LFL or 4% of hydrogen by volume.

    If the active control system malfunctions and an explosion occurs, such an impact should be minimal. The roof-type vent of the deflagration venting system can reduce damage from blast overpressure inside the facility to a 20th. The real-scale experiment of vented deflagration conducted at KICT in 2021 showed that the maximum overpressure reduction effect could be obtained due to a sudden drop in blast overpressure when the explosion vent is bigger than the vent coefficient standard of 2.2. The effectiveness remained constant regardless of the hydrogen concentration or point of the deflagration. Another model was presented to calculate the size of the roof-type vent for the safe design of the underground hydrogen facility. The improved model was built on the minimum vent size model specified in guide NFPA68 of the US National Fire Protection Association to apply to underground hydrogen facilities.

    The research team focused on the fusion of functions: ventilations in normal time and after a blast accident. Dr. Kim Yangkyun, the head of the research team said, “The dual system of active control ventilation and the roof type vent is an integrated security technology for both emergency and non-emergency situations responding to all risks incurred in an accident by making the most of the limited cross-section area of the vent.”

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    The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) is a government sponsored research institute established to contribute to the development of Korea’s construction industry and national economic growth by developing source and practical technology in the fields of construction and national land management.

    The research for this paper, “Development of technology to secure safety and acceptability for infrastructure in hydrogen city” was carried out under the KICT Research Program (project no. 20220232-001) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT.

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  • KIST offers a novel paradigm for social robots

    KIST offers a novel paradigm for social robots

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    Newswise — After competing in the finals with the University College London, which presented Bubble Worlds, the research team led by Dr. Sona Kwak from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST; President Seok Jin Yoon) presented “CollaBot” and received the best award in the “hardware, design, and interface” category at the Robot Design Competition hosted by the International Conference on Social Robotics (ICSR) 2022, which was held at the Chamber of Commerce in Florence, Italy (December 13-16, 2022).

    Previous studies on social robots were primarily based on humanoid robots that understand the context of situations and provide a range of situation-specific services. However, the commercialization of humanoid robots that were expected to perform tasks similar to, if not above, the capabilities of an actual human, was inhibited because the humanoid robot did not function as well as expected. In addition, because robotic products focus solely on a specific function, they are limited in terms of providing a wide range of assistance adapted to a consumer’s environment and situation.

    To address these limitations, the research team led by Dr. Kwak (KIST) developed a robotic library system (CollaBot) that understands situational context by integrating data collected by various robotic products, and offers context-customized assistance. This system comprising tables, chairs, bookshelves, and lights, provides a human-robot interaction based on the collaborations between different robotic products.

    The system environment is detailed as follows: the user’s smartphone, door, robotic bookshelf, and robotic chair are all connected; hence, the user can search for and select a book of interest on their smartphone, and the selected book will automatically be brought out from the bookshelf. The chair functions as a ladder by moving near to the user and letting the user step on it or a cart by transporting several books. In other words, in addition to executing its original function, each system component also adapts its function depending on the environment to offer user-friendly assistance.

    Dr. Dahyun Kang of KIST, who designed the interaction of CollaBot said that “the proposed robotic system based on the collaboration between various robotic products provides physical assistance by applying robotics technology to the existing Internet of things to create a hyper-connected society. We expect that this type of system that offers practical assistance in our daily lives can pioneer a novel robotics market.”

    This year’s Robot Design Competition at the 13th ICSR was led by the award chair, Amit Kumar Pandey, who participated in the development of key social robots such as Sophia, Nao, and Pepper.

     

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    This research was conducted via the KIST Institutional Program and KIST Technology Support Center Program. KIST was established in 1966 as the first government-funded research institute in Korea. KIST now strives to solve national and social challenges and secure growth engines through leading and innovative research. For more information, please visit KIST’s website at https://eng.kist.re.kr/

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  • New Way To Predict Deadly Rip Currents At The Beach

    New Way To Predict Deadly Rip Currents At The Beach

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    Newswise — Rip currents are a serious threat to beachgoers at any coast around the world. There are reported number of fatalities caused by rip currents every year in the U.S. and Australia. According to Surf Lifesaving Australia, rip currents were responsible for at least 21 drowning deaths per year.

    Historically, it has been difficult to measure rip currents that are mostly invisible and random in time and location. And its prediction involves limitations due to weather and ocean forecasts as well as the rip current model. In other words, it is difficult to predict its location as well as its occurrence, especially for transient rip currents, so-called flash rips that can be observed in directional random wave environments. Therefore, the prediction of rip currents is still an ongoing issue in the ocean forecasting field.

    The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT, President Kim, Byung-Suk) has announced a new approach for predicting the rip currents. A research team, led by Dr. Junwoo Choi of Department of Hydro Science and Engineering Research, developed a new prediction system which has already been tested at ten beaches in South Korea through a project funded by the Korea Hydrographic and Oceanographic Agency. Ten beaches including Haeundae beach in Busan, showed higher than 80% of accuracy rate. No fatality has been reported at the beaches during its operation.

    The advanced rip-current prediction system implementing the new approach produces a sequence of rip-current risk index at a specific coast. The prediction system can be operated with an ocean observation system or an ocean forecasting system to support the time-varying inputs of wave height, wave period, wave direction, spectral spreading, and tidal elevation.

    The rip-current risk index is computed by a function of the rip-current likelihoods varied according to the six parameters which are established by utilizing in-advance numerical simulations of rip currents at each individual coast. Note that the six parameters are the input conditions of the wave-current model, FUNWAVE (published by Univ. of Delaware) that was employed because it can solve flash rips induced by phase-resolving directional random waves.

    The performance of the present approach has been checked by operating the rip-current prediction system with a real-time ocean observation system at ten popular beaches in South Korea. Dr. Junwoo Choi said, “The needs of a rip-current prediction system is clear and explicit, and the risk index can help lifeguards and save swimmers in the coast covered by the present rip-current system.”

     

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    The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) is a government sponsored research institute established to contribute to the development of Korea’s construction industry and national economic growth by developing source and practical technology in the fields of construction and national land management.

    Funding was provided by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries and the Korea Hydrographic and Oceanographic Agency of Republic of Korea. The outcomes of this project were published in the journal, J. Korea Water Resources Association, in October 2022.

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  • Heralding the era of ‘Cost-effective Electric Car’

    Heralding the era of ‘Cost-effective Electric Car’

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    Newswise — Currently, most cathode materials used in batteries for electric vehicles are layered oxides composed of nickel for over 60% of the transition metals. Using nickel-rich layered oxide is advantageous in securing the mileage of an electric vehicle due to its high energy density, but its usage is limited by instability in the supply and demand of nickel raw materials. As an alternative, researchers focused on spinel cathode materials that use manganese as the main element, considering manganese is traded at a price of about 1/17 of nickel in the international spot market; however, the rapid decline in lifespan was an obstacle to commercialization.

    The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Seok Jin Yoon) announced that Dr. Jihyun Hong’s research team at the Energy Materials Research Center identified the cause of the rapid decline in life span-a chronic problem of high-capacity manganese-based spinel cathode materials. This team worked on significantly increasing the possibility of commercializing lithium batteries with manganese cathode materials as next-generation electric vehicle batteries.

    Manganese-based spinel cathode materials can theoretically store energy with a high density comparable to nickel-based commercial cathode materials. Considering the price of metal raw materials, the energy density per price for manganese-based spinel cathode could reach 2.8 times that of nickel-based cathodes. However, when using the battery at full capacity, a rapid decrease in lifespan is observed; as a result, practically only approximately 75% of the theoretical value could be stored. It has been established that the trivalent manganese (Mn3+) formed during the charging and discharging process of manganese-based spinel cathode materials distorts the crystal structure of the material, leading to the elution of manganese into the electrolyte and eventually causing a reduction in the lifespan of the cathode material. As a result, most research has focused on suppressing the formation of trivalent manganese.

    Contrary to mainstream academic theories, Dr. Hong’s team at KIST (first author: student researcher Gukhyun Lim) recently discovered that cathode materials exhibit excellent lifespan characteristics even when trivalent manganese is formed if the operating voltage range of the battery is adjusted. The research team utilized advanced material characterization techniques, including synchrotron radiation techniques, to interpret the phenomena that existing theories cannot explain. Through the thorough analyses, for the first time, it was identified that the side reaction at the interface between the cathode material and electrolyte during the repeated charging and discharging process is the cause of lifespan reduction.

    The research team further presented a key strategy to dramatically improve the lifespan of manganese-based materials by stabilizing the cathode-electrolyte interface. As an example of this strategy, introducing an EC-free electrolyte resulted in a 62% improvement in lifespan compared to commercial electrolytes. This improvement results in the highest capacity retention and rate capability among the performances of manganese-based spinel cathode materials simultaneously using nickel and manganese redox reactions reported so far.

    Dr. Hong of KIST said, “Through this research, KIST presented a new methodology for commercializing manganese-based high-energy cathode materials, which will be a catalyst for the expansion of electric vehicles.” He also mentioned, “If academia and industry focus on applying the interface stabilization technology of nickel-based cathode materials, which has accumulated a lot of capabilities, to manganese-based next-generation cathode materials, we expect that Korean companies in the automobile industry could maintain a higher level of competitiveness in the future.”

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    KIST was established in 1966 as the first government-funded research institute in Korea. KIST now strives to solve national and social challenges and secure growth engines through leading and innovative research. For more information, please visit KIST’s website at https://eng.kist.re.kr/

    This research was conducted under major KIST projects and Individual Research program (excellent young researcher, mid-career researcher) of the National Research Foundation of Korea with the support of the Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Jong-ho Lee), with the research results selected as the full front cover page paper of ‘Advanced Energy Materials’ (IF: 29.698, top 2.464% in the JCR field), a world-renowned journal in the field of energy materials.부수적 정보 기술

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  • Development of 100% Biodegradable Paper Straws that Do Not Become Soggy

    Development of 100% Biodegradable Paper Straws that Do Not Become Soggy

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    Newswise — Eco-friendly paper straws that do not easily become soggy and are 100% biodegradable in the ocean and soil have been developed. The straws are easy to mass-produce and thus are expected to be implemented in response to the regulations on plastic straws in restaurants and cafés.

    The paper straws that are currently available are not entirely made of paper alone. Straws made with 100% paper become too soggy when they come in contact with liquids and cannot function as straws. Accordingly, their surface should be coated. The most commonly used coating materials for paper straws are polyethylene (PE) or acrylic resin—the same materials used for making plastic bags and adhesives. Paper cups are also coated with the same materials as paper straws. A large number of previous studies have reported that polyethylene coating on discarded paper cups can disintegrate into small particles without being fully decomposed and become microplastics. Moreover, these paper products are made with paper and plastics (two very different materials) and thus it is difficult to recycle them.

    Conventional paper straws are inconvenient to use. Upon prolonged contact with a liquid, they become soggy. Also, when these straws are used to drink carbonated beverages, many bubbles may form owing to their surface properties. Currently, polylactic acid (PLA) straws and rice straws are available in the market as alternatives to paper straws. However, PLA straws—also known as corn plastic straws—do not decompose well in the ocean. While rice straws decompose well in the environment, they have disadvantages, including higher prices, due to difficulties in their mass-production and their sharp cross-sections.

    The joint research team of Dr. Oh Dongyeop and Dr. Kwak Hojung of KRICT and Professor Park Jeyoung of Sogang University have developed eco-friendly paper straws that are 100% biodegradable, perform better than conventional paper straws, and can be easily mass-produced.

    Using their technology, the research team synthesized a well-known biodegradable plastic, polybutylene succinate (PBS)*, by adding a small amount of cellulose nanocrystals to create a coating material. The added cellulose nanocrystals are the same material as the main component of paper, and this allows the biodegradable plastic to firmly attach to the paper surface during the coating process.

    * PBS (polybutylene succinate): Polyester-based biodegradable bioplastic with similar properties to those of petroleum-based polypropylene.

    Conventional paper straws do not incorporate a material that will strongly attach the plastic coating to the surface of the straws. The surface of the straws thus is not uniformly coated with plastic, impeding their use. The most significant limitations this creates are that the straws become soggy when a liquid touches the uncoated part and bubbles extensively form when paper straws are left in carbonated beverages. This is because the uncoated part easily combines with water, whereas the coated plastic part has the property of repelling water, causing the carbonated drink to contact the uneven surface of the paper straws.

    These limitations are overcome by the new paper straws developed by our research team; they do not become soggy easily or cause bubble formation in carbonated drinks because the coating material uniformly and strongly covers the surface of the straws. Also, the coating material is made of paper and biodegradable plastic and therefore will decompose and degrade completely.

    The research team found that these eco-friendly paper straws maintain their physical integrity in not only cold drinks but also hot drinks. The team also found that the straws did not become soggy when used to stir various beverages such as water, tea, carbonated drinks, milk, and other drinks containing lipids, or upon prolonged contact with liquids. The degree of sogginess of the as-prepared paper straws and conventional paper straws was compared. The conventional paper straw was severely bent when a weight of approximately 25g was suspended after the straw was dipped in cold water at 5°C for 1 min. In contrast, the as-prepared paper straw did not bend as much even when the weight was more than 50g under the same conditions.

    The newly developed straws decompose well, even in the ocean. In general, paper or plastic decomposes much more slowly in the ocean than in soil because of the ocean’s low temperature and high salinity, which impede growth of microbes. The research team performed a decomposition test in a marine environment by immersing the straw samples at a depth of 1.5–2 m on the coast near Pohang, South Korea.

    Regular plastic straws and corn plastic straws did not decompose after 120 days. Conventional paper straws preserved their shape and lost only 5% of their total weight. In contrast, the straws developed by the research team lost more than 50% of their weight after 60 days and decomposed completely after 120 days.

    “This technology is but a small step toward the direction we need to take in this era of plastic. Turning a plastic straw we often use into a paper straw will not immediately impact our environment, but the difference will be profound over time. If we gradually change from using convenient disposable plastic products to various eco-friendly products, our future environment will be much safer than what we now worry about,” said the head researcher, Dr. Oh Dongyeop.

     

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    KRICT was established as a government-funded research institute in 1976. KRICT has played a leading role in the development of the national chemical industry as it developed technologies for chemical and related fields of convergence, transferred chemical technologies to industries, produced professionals in the chemical field, and provided tremendous support for a variety of chemical infrastructures. Now we promise to reach new heights in chemistry and chemical engineering and continue our role in facilitating increased use of the knowledge from research. For more information, please visit KRICT’s website at https://www.krict.re.kr/eng/

    This achievement was supported by the Nano·Material Technology Development Program through the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Basic Science Research Program through KRICT, and the Biodegradable Bioplastics Commercialization and Demonstration Project through the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

    The research results were published in the international academic journal Advanced Science (IF:17.52) under the title ‘Biodegradable, Water-resistant, Anti-fizzing, Polyester Nanocellulose Composite Paper Straws’ on November 21, 2022, and are accessible to the public.

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  • First Step for Smart Port Facilities, Maintain Fenders with Drone & AI combination

    First Step for Smart Port Facilities, Maintain Fenders with Drone & AI combination

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    Newswise — With the advent of the fourth industrial revolution, there is an increasing need throughout the globe for the maintenance of port facilities by utilizing drones. Moreover, it has become more essential to ensure proactive maintenance of port facilities to secure their sustainable safety and serviceability since the number of aging port facilities in Republic of Korea, which are to exceed 30 years of service life by 2030, is expected to increase by about 50%.

    In particular, it is critical in terms of port operations to ensure the safe docking of ships for loading and unloading purposes. Fenders perform a critical role in these situations. Fenders are installed on the sea side of the superstructure of quay wall to prevent damage on vessel hull and structure caused by the force of the ship berthing and frictional force. However, since most fenders are inaccessible via land directly, inspectors should commonly approach by using floating boats and visually inspect the condition of the fenders. It is very dangerous, time-consuming, and difficult to obtain detailed damage information due to sea waves and other risks.

    The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT, President Kim, Byung-Suk) has announced a new inspection approach to automatically detect fenders incorporating an AI model and a vision sensor on the unmanned aerial vehicle. It especially utilized a deep learning network with the densely connected encoder–decoder format. It is one of the networks widely used for pixel-level object detection, inspired by the eccentric function of the human vision.

    The AI algorithm, developed by Department of Structural Engineering Research of KICT, research team led by Dr. Min, Jiyoung, was named ‘densely connected receptive field pyramid (DRFP)’ or ‘tiny version of DRFP (DRFPt)’. It aimed to precisely and quickly extract fenders in the pixel-level from numerous UAV images. In order to efficiently search a wide area at once and to reduce the computational complexity, the standard convolution and the dilated convolution were densely connected in a pyramid form. And a dataset of fenders was collected by using UAV on various port facilities. The detection performance of the proposed model was compared to the other deep learning models in literature. The results showed that the proposed model reliably detected fenders in images taken from various angles, with IoU and F1 scores exceeding 88%, despite changes in the color or shape caused by the tide. Here, IoU (Intersection over Union) means the ratio of the overlap area to the combined area of estimation and ground truth. F1 score is a statistical measure of the accuracy of a test. 100% means perfect overlap and accuracy.

    There are numerous risk factors in every nook and cranny of port facilities that pose potential threats to the inspectors. Therefore, many port authorities are actively attempting to adopt new remote inspection technologies such as UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and USVs (unmanned surface vehicles), both to ensure the safety of the inspectors and to facilitate their detailed and quantitative inspections on structural members that are hard to access via land. These unmanned vehicles are typically equipped with vision sensors through which they continually record video footage or single photographs as they continue to maneuver around the structure.

    Considering the massive scale of port structures that extend many kilometers, the original data size of video recordings at high resolutions is usually too large for regular computers to manage. For example, about 4,000 aerial photographs taking up 50GB of storage were collected in a 1.25km stretch of capping concrete and main caisson structure at Incheon Port in Republic of Korea, which were captured by a 4k camera with 50% overlapping carried on a drone. Thus, to ensure effective management of the massive aerial photograph data over time, it is important to quickly extract only the target objects that require maintenance from the photos or videos and to store and manage the necessary quantitative information on the condition of the target objects.

    Main researcher Dr. Min, Jiyoung said, “We are planning to upgrade this model to the fender health inspection system. It will enable us to quantitatively detect damage such as missing sections or cracks from only UAV images. This UAV-AI combination technology will automatically evaluate the fender serviceability in the future, securing the safety of inspectors and reducing the time cost in the field.”

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    The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) is a government sponsored research institute established to contribute to the development of Korea’s construction industry and national economic growth by developing source and practical technology in the fields of construction and national land management.

    The research was co-supported by the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy (No. 20011780) and the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (No. 20210659), Republic of Korea. The outcomes of this project were published in the International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering with broad impact in engineering applications (IF: 2.538) in July 2022.

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  • KIMM develops the world’s first electrode design for lithium-ion battery that improves smartphone·laptop battery performance

    KIMM develops the world’s first electrode design for lithium-ion battery that improves smartphone·laptop battery performance

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    Newswise — KIMM has announced the development of the design and process technology for the world’s first battery electrode that significantly improves the performance and stability of batteries used in electronic devices such as smartphones, laptops, and electric vehicles.

    A joint research team led by principal researcher Seungmin Hyun of the Department of Nano-Mechanics at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (President Sang-jin Park, hereinafter referred to as KIMM), an institution under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and ICT, and Professor Hoo-jeong Lee of Sungkyunkwan University (President Ji-beom Yoo, hereinafter referred to as SKKU) have developed a new battery technology that uses an electrode (Anode) structure that enhances the reliability and performance of traditional lithium-ion batteries. The results of their research achievement were published in the leading journal Advanced Functional Materials (IF: 19.924)*.

    *Publication title: Design Strategies toward High-Performance Hybrid Carbon Bilayer Anode for Improved Ion Transport and Reaction Stability (Publication date: 2022.11.10)

    In order to develop a design and process technology that maintains high performance and reliability even when the electrode of the lithium-ion battery is thick, the KIMM-SKKU joint research team formed a bilayered anode. Additionally, the anode is designed with grooves allowing small materials with improved ion conductivity and electrical conductivity to be placed between high-capacity materials

    In general, lithium-ion battery electrodes are manufactured by coating and drying a slurry* so that it can be evenly distributed over the entire electrode. As such, it is the uniformity of the slurry that determines the performance of battery. The thicker the electrode, the lower the energy density and uniformity, making it difficult to maintain performance in a high-power environment.

    *Slurry: A mixture of solids and liquids. Specifically, this refers to a mixture of active materials that chemically react to generate electrical energy when a battery is discharged, binders that are added for the structural stabilization of electrodes, and conductive materials that are added to improve electric conductivity.

    However, with the anode structure of this newly developed battery. Uniform reaction stability can be achieved while maintaining high energy density throughout the electrode, even if the electrode is thick. This is particularly helpful in improving the performance and lifespan of batteries.

    Principal researcher Seungmin Hyun stated that this achievement is an efficient method to improve the performance and lifespan of batteries by applying a new design to traditional lithium-ion battery materials and processes. He added that the team will continue to make efforts to apply this new technology to electric vehicles and soft robots that require high energy density in high-power environments, as well as to electronic devices such as commercial smartphones and laptops.

    This research study was carried out with the support of the Nano and Material Technology Development Project (No. 2021M3H4A1A02099352) from the Ministry of Science and ICT, and with the support of the Nano-based Omni-TEX Manufacturing Technology Development Project from KIMM.

     

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    The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) is a non-profit government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT. Since its foundation in 1976, KIMM is contributing to economic growth of the nation by performing R&D on key technologies in machinery and materials, conducting reliability test evaluation, and commercializing the developed products and technologies.

    This research study was carried out with the support of the Nano and Material Technology Development Project (No. 2021M3H4A1A02099352) from the Ministry of Science and ICT, and with the support of the Nano-based Omni-TEX Manufacturing Technology Development Project from KIMM.

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  • Comprehensive Performance Evaluation of Electron Microscopes Empowers Local Companies

    Comprehensive Performance Evaluation of Electron Microscopes Empowers Local Companies

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    Newswise — Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS, President Hyun-Min Park) has succeeded in developing a high-performance energy analyzer, which is a key technology for determining the performance of electron microscopes. The service will be made available to local equipment companies, to foster the advanced microscope industry.

    The performance of electron microscopes depends on the characteristics of the electron sources that produce the electron beams. This is because electron beams are focused on a lens to observe specimens. To allow precise focusing the energy distribution of the electron particles must be uniform, even when observing extremely small specimens. As such, it is important to accurately measure the energy width, an indicator of the uniformity of energy distribution, in order to develop high-performance electron microscopes.

    Many local companies have successfully developed electron microscopes, but have had to rely on numbers available in the literature instead of actual measurements, because there has been no energy analyzer capable of measuring energy width. The conventional approach does not allow comprehensive performance validation, as slight differences in performance across individual microscopes are overlooked. For companies to enter the high-performance electron microscope market, they must be able to obtain accurate measurements of energy width.

    The KRISS research team developed design technology from simulations performed in 2019, and successfully developed a pre-lens retarding field energy analyzer. The production cost was relatively cheap at around a few million won, and the device can measure an energy distribution broadening of 13.8 meV. This energy analyzer can be utilized to perform evaluations of advanced research equipment, including scanning electron microscopes. It is only 60 mm in size, making it useful as an independent analyzer, or it can be attached inside existing equipment, for microscopes with an integrated electron beam performance evaluation function.

    Energy analyzers can be mainly divided into two types. The hemispherical electron energy analyzer offers outstanding energy resolution, but is expensive and much larger in size (700 mm). The grid-type retarding field energy analyzer is compact and affordable, but is inadequate for performance evaluation as its energy resolution exceeds 300 meV.

    In addition to using the existing measurement test of angular current density, KRISS established an energy width measurement platform, and launched a testing service for local companies in August. By the end of this year KRISS plans to establish an energy resolution performance evaluation platform to assess the influence of magnetic field, noise and vibration.

    In-Yong Park, team leader of the KRISS Scientific Instruments Performance Evaluation Team, said, “Previously, Korea lacked technological self-reliance for high-performance electron microscopes despite their importance in materials, parts, and biotechnology. The new platform for comprehensive performance evaluation, ranging from individual microscope parts to the entire system, will pave the way for local companies to enter the high-performance microscope market.”

     

     

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    As the representative institute in the national measurement standards, the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) has been setting the highest measurement standards and ensuring their international equivalence since its inception in 1975. Thereby, we help build solid foundations for the national development in science and technology and for industrial advancements.

     

    The results of the study, funded by KRISS and the Basic Science Research Program under the National Research Foundation of Korea, were published in Microscopy and Microanalysis (IF: 4.099) in September.

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  • KRISS Develops Dried Blood Spot Certified Reference Materials for Newborn Screening

    KRISS Develops Dried Blood Spot Certified Reference Materials for Newborn Screening

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    Newswise — As baby underwent a newborn screening test for inherited metabolic disorders within seven days of birth. The test checks for risk factors such as hypothyroidism, phenylketonuria, maple syrup urine disease, which can lead to developmental disabilities if not detected in their early stage. Every year, one in every 1,000 newborns are diagnosed with inherited metabolic disorders.

    The Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS, President Hyun-Min Park) has developed Certified Reference Materials (CRMs)* that can enhance the reliability of using dried blood spot testing for newborn screening.

     * CRM: A reference material that serves as a standard in determining the accuracy of measurements and analytical methods

    DBS is a sample obtained by drying a drop of blood from the finger or heel on a piece of filter paper. This approach is used for screening rather than actual diagnosis, as it is less accurate than venous blood sample tests. Its common applications include newborn screening for inherited metabolic disorders and doping control during Olympics.

    The proposed CRM provides eight certified values and 10 reference values for amino acids, glucose, galactose, and acylcarnitines, which are diagnostic markers of inherited metabolic disorders in newborns. This allows accurate measurement of the amount of target compounds in the DBS.

    The lack of reference values has made it difficult for DBS testing to be considered reliable for medical decision. In addition, there has been a problem with measurement bias caused by the need to retrieve portions of blood spots using a paper puncher.

    The KRISS Biodiagnostics Analysis Team found that a 0.4 mm bias in diameter led to a 0.78 μL (one millionth of a liter) difference in sample volume.

    The research team controlled the sample volume to 50 μL during the CRM manufacturing stage, and proposed bias-free measurements as certified values, thereby successfully creating CRMs with complete measurement traceability to the International System of Units. This is the first-ever development of DBS CRMs.

    Dr. Ji-Seon Jeong, a principal researcher at KRISS, said, “DBS has come under the spotlight as a convenient way of blood sampling, which satisfies the high demand for remote healthcare and home sampling in the days of the pandemic. Our study has laid the foundation to improve the reliability in DBS sample measurement, opening the door for DBS to become an effective tool not only in screening but also diagnosis.”

    KRISS plans to develop more CRMs for other diagnostic markers used in newborn screening.

     

     

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    As the representative institute in the national measurement standards, the Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS) has been setting the highest measurement standards and ensuring their international equivalence since its inception in 1975. Thereby, we help build solid foundations for the national development in science and technology and for industrial advancements

     

    Funded by KRISS, the study was published in the world-leading journal Analytical Chemistry (IF: 8.008) in July.

     

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  • The World-Class External Cladding System Technology for Your Safety

    The World-Class External Cladding System Technology for Your Safety

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    Newswise — There are two major types of disasters. Unlike natural disasters like tornado and earthquake, fire belongs in the category of social accidents. Building fire accident causes significant damages. Five years ago, 72 people lost their lives in the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017. As The Guardian wrote in their article, Every death was avoidable, these types of social accidents can be prevented by new technology. The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT, President Kim Byung-suk) announced they have developed a world-class exterior wall construction method that has good insulation performance and is resistant to fire.

    As the insulation performance standards for buildings are being strengthened day by day to reduce greenhouse gases, external insulation methods such as EIFS (Exterior insulation finishing system) construction is increasing significantly. In particular, as an external cladding system for high-rise or super-high-rise buildings, aluminium composite material (ACM) with insulation, which is easy to construct and has a beautiful appearance, is commonly used.

    However, in the conventional ACM cladding method, heat loss often occurs due to heat bridge, a phenomenon in which warm air or heat inside the building escapes through the building structure due to the space existing between the outer wall of the building and the finishing material. In addition, fires in high-rise buildings rapidly spread vertically due to the stack effect that occurs when strong air generated in high-rise buildings rises or falls vertically.

    Examples of such cladding fire accidents include the Grenfell Tower fire in London 2017 and the 33-storey apartment fire in Ulsan, Republic of Korea in 2020. The Ulsan apartment fire incident was a large-scale fire that burned the entire high-rise building and spread the fire to the surrounding buildings even though glass wool was used as the insulation material.

    A research team led by Dr. Taewon Lee and research specialist Do-Hyun Kim at the Department of Fire Safety Research in KICT, developed a technology that improved these problems.

    It was constructed as a unit ACM cladding module with an insulating material attached, but the hollow layers of the vertical and horizontal parts existing at the junction between these modules were reinforced with insulating and flame retardant materials. The developed technology is a new building external wall structure and construction method that can effectively reduce heat loss and fundamentally block the spread of fire by filling the existing empty space with insulation and flame retardant materials. Two effects can be expected at the same time: energy saving and fire safety performance improvement.

    As a result of performance verification of the developed technology, it was confirmed that the thermal conductivity of 0.147 W/m2·K. This result exceeded the building-energy regulations(Exterior wall(Direct) 0.15 W/m2·K) for residential buildings in the central part of South Korea. Germany is one of the most efforts countries for the Energy Conservation Act(EnEV) regarding external wall systems. The EnEV requires all new exterior walls of heated rooms to reach a U-value of 0.45 W/m²K. Compared to other countries, KICT external ACM cladding technology is overcome severe regulation.

    In addition, a Large-scale fire test was conducted at the Department of Fire Safety Research to verify the performance of preventing fire spread. As a result, in the case of fire spread delay time, compared to the existing ACM cladding that did not fill the hollow layer, it secured more than 4 times longer time from 5 minutes to 23 minutes, securing the golden time for fire accidents.

    Meanwhile, cross-checking fire tests were conducted at the BRE( Building Research Establishment), which is the world’s only BS 8414-1 test certification body, a real-scale fire safety test for the external cladding system.

    The developed technology took 21 minutes, exceeding the international standard of 15 minutes, and its performance was confirmed by international certification organizations.

    Researcher Do-Hyun Kim said, “The application of an economical and fire-safe building external cladding tech will greatly contribute to saving energy consumption and reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well as protecting people’s lives and property from fire.”

    This achievement was selected as the grand prize in the 2021 Disaster Safety Thesis Contest organized by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety (Thesis: Development of a building exterior wall system that satisfies fire safety and insulation performance at the same time).

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    The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) is a government sponsored research institute established to contribute to the development of Korea’s construction industry and national economic growth by developing source and practical technology in the fields of construction and national land management.

    Research for this paper was carried out under the KICT Research Program (project no. 20210199-001, 20220237-001) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT

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  • Tech to absorb electromagnetic waves in the 6G band!

    Tech to absorb electromagnetic waves in the 6G band!

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    Newswise — A research team led by Dr. Youn-kyoung Baek and Dr. Jung-goo Lee succeeded in developing the world’s first technology to consecutively manufacture epsilon iron oxide that can absorb millimeter wave with a high coercive force equivalent to that of neodymium (Nd) magnets. The researchers are in the Department of Magnetic Materials in Powder Materials Division at the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), a government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT.

    Iron oxide material with a high-coercive epsilon crystal phase is almost the only magnetic material that absorbs ultra-high frequencies which is a potential 6G frequency band. Until now, it was only formed in a nano-sized particle of 50 nanometers or less. Japan succeeded to produce pure epsilon iron oxide through batch type wet process, but it involves time consuming multi-stage process, resulting in a low yield.

    The research team adopted the aerosol process to solve the low-yield problem and succeeded in producing a composite powder in which epsilon iron oxide nanoparticles are embedded in silica particles by spray-drying precursor solutions in a hot chamber. When the precursor material solution is continuously injected and the droplets are instantly dried, the iron precursor is trapped in the silica xerogel particles and limited to grow during heat treatment. Epsilon iron oxide nanoparticles could be continuously produced through a micrometer-sized powder manufacturing process, which is significant as it showed the possibility of commercialization of millimeter wave absorbing materials.

    While conventional metals that absorb electromagnetic waves have reduced absorption capacity in high-frequency bands or have limitations in controlling frequency bands, epsilon iron oxide has high potential as a material for future communication parts due to its absorption capacity in the ultra-high frequency (30-200GHz) band. Continuous manufacturing technology of epsilon iron oxide with millimeter wave absorption capability can be used for mm-wave 5G/6G wireless communication, radar sensors for driverless car, stealth and low-orbit satellite communication components. In addition, as it is a high-coercivity magnetic material, it can be used for electric motor parts for future mobility.

    Currently, no companies commercially produce products with applied magnetic materials capable of absorbing mm waves. Only two or three companies in the US, Japan, and Germany produce 5G band absorbing and shielding materials. The technology developed by researchers at KIMS is expected to be localized and exported to the global market in the future.

    Principal investigator Dr. Youn-kyoung Baek said, “The epsilon iron oxide can selectively absorb ultra-high frequencies in a wide band (30 to 200 GHz). The significance of the study is that it developed the first continuous manufacturing process of epsilon iron oxides. The technology is expected to accelerate the commercialization of wireless communication devices using millimeter waves, self-driving car radars, and absorber technology for space satellite communication in the future.”

    The research was carried out as a project to develop magnetic composite Materials with tunable magnetic performances of KIMS and funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT. In addition, the research was published in Chemical Communications, a renowned academic journal in materials science published by the Royal Society of Chemistry in the UK on September 23rd. Currently, the research team is discussing technology transfer for mass production of iron oxide absorbing materials with many companies, and is conducting a follow-up study to improve wave absorption capacity to terahertz which is 100 gigahertz (GHz) or higher.

     

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    About Korea Institute of Materials Science(KIMS)

    KIMS is a non-profit government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT of the Republic of Korea. As the only institute specializing in comprehensive materials technologies in Korea, KIMS has contributed to Korean industry by carrying out a wide range of activities related to materials science including R&D, inspection, testing&evaluation, and technology support.

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  • Conducting sample collection and diagnosis together in public health and medical settings through non-face-to-face methods

    Conducting sample collection and diagnosis together in public health and medical settings through non-face-to-face methods

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    Newswise — A system has been developed that can quickly and precisely perform sample collection and diagnosis in public health and medical settings in light of new and variant infectious diseases, such as COVID-19.

    The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, an institution under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and ICT (President Sang Jin Park, hereafter referred to KIMM), has developed the first integrated system in Korea that can collect specimens at the medical sites using a specimen collection robot in a non-face-to-face manner to prevent the spread of infectious diseases such as COVID-19, and can automatically complete high-speed molecular diagnosis in 40 minutes. This newly developed system is expected to lay the foundation for preventing the spread of new and variant infectious diseases in advance and strengthening the competitiveness of K-Bio diagnostics technology.

    To develop this system, the KIMM research team led by Dr. Dongkyu Lee, a principal researcher from the Department of Medical Devices at the Daegu Research Center for Medical Devices and Green Energy, and Dr. Joonho Seo, head of the Department of Medical Robotics (of the same Center), improved upon the sample collection technology of non-face-to-face samplings robot previously developed by KIMM. In addition to the existing sampling robot, by integrating rapid molecular diagnostic equipment, sample preparation technology of collected samples, and fast real-time PCR technology based on the rapid thermocycles, this system can now quickly and precisely conduct non-face-to-face procedures from sample collection to molecular diagnosis on site.

    The whole world experienced the collapse of the medical system due to the continuous outbreak of new and variant infectious diseases, such as monkeypox and COVID-19, over the past three years. In order to respond to new and variant infectious diseases that are highly contagious, rapid and precise molecular diagnosis is required in public health and medical settings. However, through traditional methods, it takes approximately 6 to 12 hours to complete the process of face-to-face sample collection, transfer, and molecular diagnosis.

    One problem with traditional molecular diagnostic equipment is that it takes 1 to 2 hours or more to obtain analysis results. To solve this problem, attempts have been made to utilize photothermal-based and microfluidics-based rapid thermocycle technology*. However, it is difficult to manufacture at low cost and quantitatively analyze in real time, thus limiting their on-site applications.

    * Rapid thermocycle technology: a technology that rapidly performs repeated heating and cooling cycles

    On the other hand, the KIMM research team’s newly developed rapid, automatic molecular diagnostic system, integrated with a sample collection robot, can obtain real-time PCR analysis results within 9 to 20 minutes at a speed 4.2 times faster than existing molecular diagnostic equipment. This is achieved by using a customized thermocycler that uses preset heating and cooling blocks in turn.

    The KIMM research team performed validation tests using this new system by conducting diagnosis of pathogenic bacteria and infectious coronavirus. From sample collection to molecular diagnosis, bacterial DNA analysis was completed within 25 minutes and coronavirus RNA within 40 minutes. The molecular diagnosis results obtained using this new system were similar to those obtained when using commercial molecular diagnosis equipment.

    KIMM’s newly developed system is a non-face-to-face system that applies automatic diagnostic technology throughout the entire process of sample dispensing, sample preparation processing, and rapid molecular diagnostics after sample collection, so that even unskilled users can quickly conduct diagnostics on site. When used in public health and medical settings such as screening clinics, airports, and emergency environments, the spread of new and variant infectious diseases can be quickly and accurately prevented in advance.

    Dr. Dongkyu Lee said, “The rapid, automatic molecular diagnosis system integrated with a non-face-to-face sample collection robot will prevent the continuous spread of new and mutated infectious diseases, while also protecting medical staff and the health of the general public.” He added, “KIMM will work with medical institutions and industries to globalize K-Bio technology, prevent the spread of new and mutated infectious diseases, and strive for R&D efforts with the goal of protecting the healthy lives of everyone in Korea.”

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    The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) is a non-profit government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT. Since its foundation in 1976, KIMM is contributing to economic growth of the nation by performing R&D on key technologies in machinery and materials, conducting reliability test evaluation, and commercializing the developed products and technologies.

    These research efforts were carried out by KIMM and Biot Korea, Inc., with the support of the Korean Health Industry Development Institute as part of the “Development of a rapid, automatic molecular diagnostic field-type system and POC (proof-of concept) verification with a sample collection robot” project.

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  • KIMM Develops a Smart Valve that Automatically Detects and Isolates Ruptures in a Pipeline System

    KIMM Develops a Smart Valve that Automatically Detects and Isolates Ruptures in a Pipeline System

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    Newswise — A smart valve that automatically isolates pipe ruptures caused by accidents was developed for the first time in South Korea.

    The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials, an institution under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and ICT (President Sang Jin Park, hereafter referred to as KIMM), has successfully developed “K-smart valve”, that is capable of quickly detecting and isolating ruptured pipes on its own and recovering key functions in a pipeline system when a leakage occurs due to unexpected pipe breakage at an industrial site.

    ※ K-Smart Valve: The “Smart Valve” for the use of a Naval Ship was first developed by the US Navy and is widely referred to by this term as a proper noun. The valve developed by the researchers at KIMM works with completely a different mechanism (algorithm), which led to it being named as the “K-Smart Valve.”

    The research team led by Dr. Byungchang Jung, a principal researcher at the KIMM Department of System Dynamics, applied an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm to the K-Smart Valve to autonomously recognize a leakage and isolate ruptured pipes without any control command from an operator. 

    Most piping systems in naval ships, general ships, offshore plants, etc., has a Valve Remote Control System (VRCS). Using the VRCS, an operator can open and close valves remotely if necessary while monitoring the pressure, flow, and temperature in a pipeline. 

    However, when unexpected accidents such as pipe breakages with communication network loss or electric power loss occur, it is not easy for workers to recognize the situation and respond calmly. Moreover, if they are not quick enough to respond, such incidents could lead to greater secondary damage. 

    KIMM’s K-Smart Valve was developed with the primary purpose of being applied to the pipeline system in a naval ship such as the fire extinguishing and cooling systems. In the event of unexpected pipe damage from a threat during combat, the K-Smart Valve can promptly restore original functions of the pipeline system (e.g. utilizing of fire-extinguishing water or cooling water) without any control from crews to minimize secondary damage caused by the spread of fire or overheating of weapon systems.

    The K-Smart Valve consists of a valve body, two pressure sensors, an actuator and a control module. A remote control valve can simply become the K-Smart Valve by embedding the AI algorithm in a control module in the remote control valve. Thus, it is possible to easily build an autonomous recovery system using the K-Smart Valves without significant changes of a VRCS that is already installed in any pipeline system. 

    Dr. Jung stated, “The K-Smart Valve can prevent human life and property losses in various industrial sites through rapid recovery in the event of a pipe breakage accident.” He added, “In the future, the K-Smart Valve will be widely used for unmanned technology not only in the military, such as for naval ships, but also in general ships and onshore and offshore plants at industrial sites.”

    This study was conducted as part of the “AI-based machine system predictive diagnosis and accident response technology” project, a core project at KIMM. There are plans underway to begin developing practical applications through the civil-military technology transfer project in 2023 in collaboration with BY Controls, Inc. and Pusan National University, with the goal of applying the technology to the fire extinguishing system of navy vessels.

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    The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) is a non-profit government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT. Since its foundation in 1976, KIMM is contributing to economic growth of the nation by performing R&D on key technologies in machinery and materials, conducting reliability test evaluation, and commercializing the developed products and technologies.

    The research result of this project was published in IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, No. 27*, a renowned academic journal in the field of automation and control systems.

    * Publication Title: Development of Autonomous Recovery System for Pipeline of Naval Ships by Using a Multistage Control Algorithm (2022.04.)

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  • Development of New Technology for Wastewater Treatment for Semiconductor Production

    Development of New Technology for Wastewater Treatment for Semiconductor Production

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    Newswise — Alcohols are used to remove impurities on the surface of semiconductors or electronics during the manufacturing process, and wastewater containing alcohols is treated using reverse osmosis, ozone, and biological decomposition. Although such methods can lower the alcohol concentration in wastewater, they are ineffective at completely decomposing alcohols in wastewater with a low alcohol concentration. This is because alcohol is miscible in water, making it impossible to completely separate from alcohol using physical methods, while chemical or biological treatments are highly inefficient. For this reason, wastewater with a low alcohol concentration is primarily treated by diluting it with a large amount of clean water before its discharge.

    The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST, President Seok-Jin Yoon) has announced that a research team led by Dr. Sang Hoon Kim and Dr. Gun-hee Moon of Extreme Materials Research Center developed a photocatalyst that can completely decompose a trace amount of alcohol in water within a short duration by adding a very trace amount of copper to iron oxide, which is used as a catalyst during the advanced oxidation process.

    The research team employed Fenton oxidation that uses oxidizing agents and catalysts during the advanced oxidation process for water treatment. Usually alcohols were used as reagents to verify radical production during Fenton oxidation in other advanced oxidation process (AOP) studies, they were the target for removal from semiconductor wastewater in this research.

    This water treatment technology is expected to dramatically reduce the cost and water resources invested into the treatment of semiconductor wastewater. In the past, clean water with a volume 10 times higher than that of the wastewater under treatment was required for dilution of the wastewater in order to reduce the alcohol concentration of 10 ppm in the wastewater to less than 1 ppm.

    If the photocatalyst developed by the KIST is used for water treatment, water resources can be saved. The research team applied the photocatalyst to wastewater from a semiconductor factory to prove that alcohol decomposition levels similar to those observed in the laboratory could be achieved in industrial practice.

    “As large-scale semiconductor production lines are established, we expect that there will be a rapid increase in the demand for the treatment of semiconductor wastewater,” said Dr. Kim. “The results of our research will provide a solution to effectively treat semiconductor wastewater using less resources and at a lower cost,” he added.

     

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    KIST was established in 1966 as the first government-funded research institute in Korea to establish a national development strategy based on science and technology and disseminate various industrial technologies to promote the development of major industries. KIST is now elevating the status of Korean science and technology through the pursuit of world-leading innovative research and development. For more information, please visit KIST’s website at https://eng.kist.re.kr/

    The research was funded by the Korea Materials Research Center of the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT (Minister Jong-Ho Lee), the Environmental Technology Development Project of the Korean Ministry of Environment and basic projects of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology. Related research papers are published in the Chemical Engineering Journal, a reputable academic journal in the chemical engineering and environmental fields.

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  • ETRI Unveils an XR based Metaverse Platform for Multi-user Collaborations

    ETRI Unveils an XR based Metaverse Platform for Multi-user Collaborations

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    Newswise — ETRI researchers have developed a metaverse platform that allows for freely collaborating among multi users via various means of communications online and offline. By overcoming existing technical challenges, it is expected to be of great help in the creation of various new services and its commercialization via realization of a practical metaverse.

    Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced that it has succeeded in developing the world’s best XR collaboration platform technology that allows multiple remote participants to interact with each other in order to perform various tasks in an extended reality (XR) metaverse space.

    With existing technology, real-time collaboration of about 5 people is possible, but the research team has developed a technology that supports user-to-user interaction and remote collaboration in real time through data synchronization for up to 11 participants. It has doubled the capacity compared to other similar metaverse platforms.

    The XR metaverse platform developed by ETRI is a software technology that supports various interactions between users through ▲ building and expanding the XR space ▲ high-precision location recognition (VPS) of large-scale participants by 3D coordinate recognition in the XR space ▲ individual user’s hand-gesture recognition ▲ real-time synchronization of user-shared data in the metaverse space.

    By using this platform, it is possible to implement the extended reality-based metaverse space with the world’s best performance. The research team also acquired technology to align and expand the XR space in real time by adding real-time map-learning technology for mobile devices and XR glasses. The accuracy of creating the virtual space is quite precise, being only 2.85 cm, in terms of difference error between the virtually-created space and the real space.

    ETRI has optimized the platform so that movements between users are synchronized within 0.1 seconds in latency. It was also adjusted so that the computation speed of the collaboration platform could remain steady even if the number of participants is increased. Delivering a compelling experience via a minimum delay of network connection environment is considered an essential part of metaverse implementation.

    It recognizes the user’s hand gestures quickly and precisely. This is thanks to the use of a single-layer deep learning inference technique. In general, the amount of data to be processed and the motion recognition time increases as the number of users increases. The ETRI’s XR metaverse platform achieved the world’s best performance by recognizing multi hand gestures in 0.01 seconds and maintaining the collaborative operation speed between users at 0.1 seconds. Synchronization speed between multi-participating users was verified through ETRI’s own 5G MEC testbed built for this purpose.

    The research team’s XR metaverse platform enabled collaboration and communication across visual, audio, and tactile senses, which is a green light for the spread of Korea’s own-brand of XR based metaverse technology.

    In particular, this technology was applied to a science-class education scenario for elementary school students in Gyeongnam in Korea in December 2021, and its practicality was verified through a remote education pilot service via face/non-face channels. In addition, the research team plans to further enhance the applicability by additional demonstrating the working system for 20 students at another public elementary school in Daejeon, Korea in October this year.

    “We will try to promote the commercialization of ETRI’s metaverse technology in various fields such as remote collaboration based education, manufacturing, office, and home by utilizing the world’s best XR based metaverse collaboration platform”, Dr. Son Wook-ho of ETRI’s CG/Vision Lab.

    In the future, ETRI will make efforts to develop the industrial ecosystem of metaverse by acquiring core metaverse technologies through establishing international standards related to metaverse. In addition, further acquirement of advanced technologies will help to build the ultimate metaverses by XR metaverse platform’s application services.

     

     

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    This achievement accrues to the research project of “5G based VR/AR device core technology development” by the Ministry of Science and ICT in Korea.

     

    About Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI)

    ETRI is a non-profit government-funded research institute. Since its foundation in 1976, ETRI, a global ICT research institute, has been making its immense effort to provide Korea a remarkable growth in the field of ICT industry. ETRI delivers Korea as one of the top ICT nations in the World, by unceasingly developing world’s first and best technologies.

    This technology was developed with the assistance of the Ministry of Science and ICT.

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  • Demonstration of Eco-friendly Hydrogen Combustor to Achieve Carbon Neutrality

    Demonstration of Eco-friendly Hydrogen Combustor to Achieve Carbon Neutrality

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    Newswise — An eco-friendly hydrogen combustor for domestic gas turbine that reduces carbon dioxide emissions has been developed and will be undergoing field test.

    The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (President Sang Jin Park, hereafter referred to as the KIMM), an institute under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that it has developed a hydrogen co-firing combustor for gas turbines used in power generation. This is the first time that such technology has been developed in South Korea, and KIMM has plans to perform a demonstration of its application to power plants.

    Since July 2020, the research team led by Dr. Minkuk Kim, head of the Department of Zero-carbon Fuel and Power Generation at the KIMM Institute of Carbon Neutral Energy Machinery, has been developing an eco-friendly combustor for domestic gas turbines with 30% hydrogen co-firing, in collaboration with 13 industrial, academic, and research partners. A project for field demonstration will be started in 2023 with Korea East-West Power Company and Doosan Enerbility.

    Hydrogen is highly reactive fuel so there is a risk of high temperatures and flashback. In order to prevent such risks, KIMM improved a fuel injection method, including fuel split, staging and modifying fuel holes. These were applied to the heavy duty gas turbine developed by Doosan Enerbility. As a result, it was possible that NOx and combustion instability were suppressed to the same level of the original LNG gas turbine while burning a mixture of 30% hydrogen fuel.

    In the past, many efforts were made to promote the development of hydrogen co-firing combustors, but performance verification was difficult because there were no proper combustion test facilities in South Korea. So the combustor developed by KIMM was transferred to the German Aerospace Center (DLR) during the development process and successfully passed combustion tests in a high-pressure environment. These conditions mimic the actual operating conditions of the gas turbine, and its performance was verified accordingly. The development of hydrogen co-firing technology by domestic research institutes and its application to domestic gas turbines is a meaningful moment on the road to carbon neutrality in South Korea.

    When gas turbines use fuel blended with 30% hydrogen, CO2 emissions can be reduced by 10.4% compared to 100% LNG power generation. KIMM plans to increase the percentage of hydrogen contents in fuel over 50% thereby 21.4% reduction of CO2 by 2024. In addition, the team is a focusing its research efforts with the goal of developing a 100% carbon-free hydrogen combustion technology by 2030.

    KIMM also held a briefing on the development of a 300MW class gas turbine hydrogen co-firing combustor at the main office in Daejeon on October 12th. During this meeting, KIMM shared the details of their work on the core technology of modifying the hydrogen combustor. They also shared the results from Doosan Enerbility’s high-pressure combustion test results and announced Korea East-West Power Company’s Korea Institute of Future Convergence Technology’s plans to conduct power plant demonstrations of the hydrogen gas turbine.

    At the briefing session, KIMM President Sang Jin Park stated, “In order to transition to an eco-friendly and carbon-free energy society, it is essential to develop hydrogen fuel conversion technology for medium and large-sized gas turbines and to conduct demonstrations at power plants. Currently, developments of combustion and turbine system are in their final stages. A decision of turbine manufacturers Doosan Enerbility and Korea East-West Power Company to test the new engine’s performance has made it possible to secure domestic hydrogen turbine technology that much sooner.” He also emphasized, “In order for domestic technology to be commercialized in a timely manner without failing, the government’s interest and support in selecting a demonstration site are necessary. This is because such a process is otherwise impossible through the will of the private sector alone due to the nature of the power generation industry.”

    President Park added, “Unlike LNG heavy duty gas turbine in South Korea, which began as a fast follower, this hydrogen combustor is technologically equivalent to those from leading companies. If we can accelerate its commercialization through demonstration projects will help pave the way for South Korea’s next-generation new growth industry.”

     

     

     

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    The Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) is a non-profit government-funded research institute under the Ministry of Science and ICT. Since its foundation in 1976, KIMM is contributing to economic growth of the nation by performing R&D on key technologies in machinery and materials, conducting reliability test evaluation, and commercializing the developed products and technologies.

     

    These research efforts were carried out with the support of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy’s project for the “Development of a 50% Eco-Friendly High Efficiency Gas Turbine Combustor for 300MWe-class Power Generation” (2020-2024, KETEP 20206710100030).

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