International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 115 (2017) 879–885

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International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer

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Technical Note

Permeability of dual-height micro-post wicks for heat pipes

Sora Jeon a,b, Chan Byon b,⇑
a
School of Mechanical Engineering, Yeungnam University, Gyeongsan 38541, Republic of Korea
b
School of Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan 44919, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Micro-post wick is a promising candidate for liquid-based thermal management of future electronics and
Received 29 May 2017 energy systems. In this study, the permeability of the dual-height micro-post wicks is investigated
Received in revised form 21 July 2017 numerically with taking into account the shape of meniscus. The meniscus shape of liquid in dual-
Accepted 24 July 2017
height micro-post wicks is estimated based on surface energy minimization algorithm. The estimated
Available online 1 August 2017
meniscus shape is then imported into a CFD study for predicting the permeability using the Darcy’s
law. The effects of contact angle, primary and secondary post heights, and post diameter on the perme-
Keywords:
ability of the dual-height heat sink are investigated in this study. The results indicate that there exists a
Permeability
Micro-post wick
finite range for the secondary height of the post according to the given primary post height. This range is
Dual-height shown to be enlarged as the contact angle decreases and hardly affected by the post height. The dual-
height configuration is shown to bring about enhanced permeability compared with single height config-
uration with same mean post height, due to the increased effective liquid height. The permeability of the
dual height micro-post wick is shown to increase monotonically as either the primary height or the sec-
ondary height increases. The permeability increases as the contact angle increases and the nondimen-
sional post diameter decreases. Unlike the permeability, the dual-height configuration is shown to
reduce the capillary pressure of the micro-post wick. Based on the numerical results a correlation for pre-
dicting the dual-height micro-post wick is proposed.
Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Heat pipes and vapor chambers are well-known passive cooling
devices based on phase change phenomena inside porous
microstructures. The heat pipe can transport heat over long dis-
tances without a substantial drop in temperature [1–3]. In the heat
pipe, the wick plays an important role in the thermal performance
of the heat pipe, because the wick provides the capillary pressure
for recirculating the working fluid, the flow channel, as well as
the heat conducting path [4]. In this regard, design of microstruc-
tures of the wick is of a substantial interest in the thermal engi-
neering field. The most commonly-employed wick structures are
sintered metal particles, mesh screens, and linear microgrooves
[5,6]. Those types of wick structure have their own pros and cons.
The groove wick provides relatively low capillary pressure while
the mesh screen wick and sintered metal particle wick have low
permeability [2]. In addition, the groove wick allows the liquid
flow only along a one-dimensional direction, and thus, two-
dimensional heat spreading cannot be facilitated via groove-
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: cbyon@unist.ac.kr (C. Byon).
wicked heat pipe. Recently, the micro-post wick, which is fabri-
cated MEMS-based techniques, is receiving a significant interest
due to its many favorable characteristics. First, the permeability
of the micro-post wick is shown to be much higher than the sin-
tered metal particle wick or mesh screen wick [7]. In addition,
the micro-post wick is compatible with polymer-based heat pipes
that can be directly integrated into printed circuit boards [7].
Various studies have been conducted in regard to the micro-
post wicks. Lips et al. [8] developed a two-dimensional array of
cubes with a width of 400 lm and visualized the capillary flow
in the cube array. Nam et al. [7] fabricated Cu post arrays and
demonstrated their performance using the capillary-rate-of-rise
experiment. Lefevre and Lallemand [9] developed an analytical
model for the capillary performance of the post array by approxi-
mating it as a porous medium. While aforementioned studies have
been limited to the post arrays with homogeneous configurations,
Byon et al. [10] first investigated the micro-post wicks with various
heterogeneous configurations such as parallel array or hexagonal
array, and showed that the heterogeneous configuration can bring
about significantly higher permeability whereas the degradation of
capillary pressure is relatively low. On the other hand, Ryu et al.
[11] considered the micro-post wicks with dual-height posts, and

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2017.07.113
0017-9310/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
880 S. Jeon, C. Byon / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 115 (2017) 879–885
shows that the dual-height micro-post wicks can have significantly
higher convective heat transfer performance than conventional
single-height micro-post wicks by up to 300% because of the
stretched thin evaporation film region with low thermal resistance.
Ryu et al. also indicated that the dual-height configuration does not
affect the capillary pressure [11]. However, they did not consider
the effect of dual-height configuration on the permeability, which
is the most important parameter in determining the capillary
pumping performance of the micro-post wicks. In order to further
demonstrate the performance of the dual-height micro-post wicks,
the permeability of dual-height micro-post wicks should be inves-
tigated in a quantitative manner. In addition, as indicated by some
previous studies [2,5], the curvature shape of the meniscus should
be taken into account in order to accurately predict the permeabil-
ity of micro-post wick.
In the present study, the permeability of the dual-height micro-
post wicks is investigated numerically with taking into account the
shape of meniscus, and the results are compared with those of con-
ventional single-height wick. The meniscus shape of liquid in dual-
height micro-post wicks is estimated based on surface energy min-
imization algorithm. The estimated meniscus shape is then
imported into a CFD study for predicting the permeability using
the Darcy’s law. The effects of contact angle, post height, and post
diameter on the permeability of the dual-height heat sink are
investigated in this study.
2. Numerical study
The numerical model considered in the present study is
described in Fig. 1. In this study, hexagonal array [12] of micro-
posts is considered. The effects of post height
(35 lm
H
65 lm), contact angle (0.2
cos h
0.99), and post
diameter (20 lm
d
60 lm) on the permeability are investi-
gated. Aforementioned nondimensional parameters (d⁄ and H⁄)
are defined based on the pitch of the array as follows:
 d
d ¼
l the length of unit cell along the flow direction. The Darcy-mean
H
H ¼
l as illustrated in Fig. 4. As indicated by literatures [2,5], the perme-
where d, H, and l are post diameter, post height, and pitch of array,
respectively. In this study, the secondary posts are juxtaposed with
respect to the primary post, as illustrated in Fig. 1. The primary post
height (=H1) is fixed at 50 lm, and secondary post height (=H2) is
varied from 35 lm to 65 lm, in order to investigate the effect of
dual-height configuration on the permeability. The pitch of array
is fixed at 100 lm. In the micro-post wicks, the meniscus at the liq-
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram considered in the present study.
uid/air interface is not flat, and thus, the effective height of the liq-
uid/air interface measured from the bottom is lower than the post
height [2]. Consequently, the permeability value based on the flat-
meniscus assumption significantly overestimates the permeability
of micro-post wicks. To estimate the meniscus shape, the Surface
Evolver (SE, hereafter) is used (ver. 2.26, freeware). In SE, the shape
of a meniscus is iterated by calculating the virtual force on each ver-
tex as the negative gradient of the energy with respect to position.
The iteration is continued until the vertex positions converge to the
values that result in the minimum total surface energy [13]. In SE
simulation, the surrounding geometry, liquid volume, and the con-
tact angle are used as input parameters. Fig. 2 shows the predicted
shape of meniscus for a selected dual-height micro-post wick.
The predicted meniscus shape is them imported into a commer-
cial CFD package for solving 3D Navier-Stokes’ equation based on
the geometry illustrated in Fig. 1. The boundary conditions are
shown in Fig. 3. The no-slip boundary condition is applied to all
post surfaces and the bottom surface, and the symmetry condition
is applied to the side surfaces of the unit cell. A pressure boundary
condition was applied at the inlet and outlet. Along the axial direc-
tion, a periodic boundary condition is applied to ensure that the
velocity profile at the inlet exactly reappears at the outlet. The
deflection of the liquid meniscus from its equilibrium shape is
ignored attributable to the extremely low inertia of the flow inside
typical heat pipe wicks [5]. The normal velocity and the gradients
of the tangential velocity in the normal direction are therefore both
set to be zero on the boundary of the unit cell including the menis-
cus surface. The steady incompressible Navier-Stokes equations
were solved to predict the 3D velocity profiles and to compute
the average velocity across the inlet. From the predicted average
velocity, the permeability was determined using Darcy’s law as
follows:
K dP
um ¼  ð3Þ
l dx
where um is the Darcy-mean velocity [14,15], K is permeability.
Pressure gradient, dP/dx can be approximated to Dp/L, where L is
ð1Þ
velocity um is obtained as the volume flow rate of liquid through
ð2Þ a unit cell divided by the nominal cross sectional area of unit cell,
ability of micro-post wicks increases as the post-height increases.
Therefore, the permeability increases as the secondary height (H2)
increases provided that the primary height (H1) is fixed. In this
regard, the height of the nominal cross sectional area is set as Hm
Fig. 2. Estimated meniscus shape using SE.
 S. Jeon, C. Byon / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 115 (2017) 879–885 881

of tens of micrometers, which are typically used for practical appli-

cations, We and Bo are much smaller than O(1).
In the meanwhile, the capillary pressure of the micro-post wick
can be simply obtained via SE simulation, based on the change in
surface energy per unit volume as the following equation:
DE
Pcap ¼ ð6Þ
DV

3. Results

3.1. Numerical validation

In order to validate the present numerical model, another set of

numerical simulation is independently performed based on the
conventional single height configuration and the result thereof is
Fig. 3. Numerical model and boundary conditions.
compared with previous analytic results [2]. In case of the single-
height micro-post wicks, it is known that analytic expression for
predicting the permeability can be obtained based on the 2D per-
meability model and Brinkman-extended Darcy’s equation, as fol-
lows [16]:


eff þ aHeff
H2 
expð2bÞ  1
K  ¼ K 2D 1 ð7Þ
H2 þ aH bðexpð2bÞ þ 1Þ
d
H2 where the nondimensional variables are defined as follows:
H1
K K 2D H Heff  d
K ¼ 2
; K 2D ¼ 2
; H ¼ ; Heff ¼ ; d ¼ ;
l l sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi l l l
ed eH2
a¼ ; b¼ eff
ð8Þ
4ð1  eÞ K 2D

l The effective interface height, Heff, is determined as:

Fig. 4. Cross sectional area of unit cell used for permeability definition (left:
primary post, right: secondary post).
(the mean value of H1 and H2), in order for a reasonable comparison
of permeabilites of single-height and dual-height micro-post wicks.
In our numerical study, the inlet pressure was adjusted to fix the
Reynolds number at 0.1, which is a common value in heat pipe
wicks.
In the present numerical study, a grid independence test is con-
ducted to demonstrate that the numerical results are independent
on the number of mesh elements. The mesh configuration is
refined by reducing maximum grid size at all fluid-solid surfaces
where the flow characteristics may become very important, and
keeping other mesh quantities such as mesh growth rate, mini-
mum mesh size. From trial-and-errors, it was found that the
numerical errors are less than 0.5% when the maximum grid size
is less than d/100. Therefore, this value was used for the present
numerical study. It is also worth noting that the presented analysis
is correct when inertia and gravitational forces are negligible com-
pared with the surface tension force. The relative importance of
such forces is commonly characterized using the Weber number
and the Bond number defined as follows:
Inertia force qU 2 L
We ¼ ¼ ð4Þ
Surface tension force r a stable meniscus formation with respect to a given primary
Gravitational force qgL2
Bo ¼ ¼ ð5Þ
Surface tension force r difference of primary and secondary heights increases beyond
where L is the characteristic length, U is the flow velocity, q is the
density, r is the surface tension coefficient, and g is the gravita-
tional constant. For sintered metal wicks with particle diameters
Heff ¼ H  DH d ð9Þ
The parameters d, l and H are the diameter, pitch of array, and
the post height, respectively. The asterisked terms such as d⁄ and
H⁄ represent nondimensional parameters which are normalized
by the pitch, l. For hexagonal arrays as illustrated in Fig. 1, DH⁄ is
given as follows [2]:

DH ¼ 0:10786  0:02261 cos h  0:20899d
 2
þ 0:72996ðcos hÞ2 þ 0:13571d cos h þ 0:08869d
 2
 1:19647d cos h2  0:18281 cos hd
2
þ 0:49962d ðcos hÞ2 ð10Þ
where h is the contact angle. Fig. 5 shows a comparative plot of the
present numerical results and analytical results obtained from Eq.
(7). As shown in this figure, the present numerical model can excel-
lently matches the results from the Eq. (7). In Fig. 5 also indicates
that the present numerical results are in a good agreement with
the previous experimental results. More details on Eq. (7) is avail-
able in Ref. [2].
3.2. Possible range of secondary height
In the dual-height micro-post wicks, unlike single height wicks,
it is believed that there exists a finite range of secondary height for
height, as a function of geometry and contact angle. This is because
the pinning at the upper edge of the post can be detached as the
some specific value, as illustrated in Fig. 6. In this figure, the left
post for each case represents the primary post height (=H1) while
the right post shows the secondary post height (=H2). For a fixed
value of H1, when H2 is too small compared with H1 (left case of
882 S. Jeon, C. Byon / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 115 (2017) 879–885

0.050
Analysis(Eq. 7) Simulation 0.35 d* = 0.2
0.045 d* = 0.3
cos 0.2 cos 0.2
0.30
d* = 0.4
0.040 cos 0.4 cos 0.4 d* = 0.5
cos 0.6 cos 0.6 d* = 0.6
0.035 0.25 Polynomial Fit of B
cos 0.8 cos 0.8
0.030 cos 0.99 cos 0.99
0.20

*
Δ Hf
K*

0.025
0.15
0.020
0.10
0.015

0.010 0.05

0.005
0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
d*
Fig. 5. Comparative plot for numerically, analytically, and experimentally obtained
nondimensional permeability values.
Fig. 6), a stable meniscus cannot be formed. In the similar manner,
when H2 is too large (right case of Fig. 6), the liquid cannot climb
until the top surface whereas the remaining upper portion of post
becomes inactive, which also corresponds to a thermodynamically
unstable state.
In order to obtain an analytic expression for the possible range
of H2 with respect to H1, we performed a numerical study using the
Surface Evolver. Fig. 7 shows the results.
This figure shows the finite range for secondary height versus
contact angle and post diameter as a nondimensional form. The
span of possible range of nondimensional secondary height, the
DH⁄f is defined as follows:
DH f
DHf ¼
l meniscus. The effect of enhanced flexibility and increased possible
where l is the pitch of array which is shown in Fig. 1, and DHf is the
span of possible range of the secondary post height which is illus-
trated in Fig. 6. Note that the possible range of the secondary height
is also illustrated in Fig. 8. As shown in this figure, the range for the
secondary height is primarily a function of contact angle whereas
the effect of post height on the post diameter is negligible. Based
on this, a best-fit polynomial correlation for is proposed in this
study as follows:
DHf ¼ 0:17587 cos h2 þ 0:13571 cos h þ 0:01
0.00
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
cos
Fig. 7. Finite range for secondary height versus contact angle and post diameter.
Eq. (12) indicates that the secondary post height cannot be too
much increased or decreased with respect to the primary post
height, and can be widely used for designing the dual-height
micro-post array.
3.3. Permeability of dual-height micro-post wicks
Fig. 8 shows the nondimensional permeability (K⁄ = K/l2) versus
nondimensional secondary post height (H⁄2 = H2/l) for various val-
ues of nondimensional post diameter and contact angle. As shown
in this figure, there exists a finite range for H⁄2 as discussed with
Fig. 6. The span of possible H2 range decreases as the contact angle
increases, because the configuration of the liquid meniscus
becomes less flexible as the contact angle approaches the right
angle. However, as the contact angle increases, the permeability
ð11Þ also increases due to the relatively higher effective height of liquid
span of H2 on the permeability is shown to be less significant com-
pared with that of enhanced effective height of liquid meniscus. As
a result, the permeability always increases as the contact angle
increases, regardless of the H2, suggesting that the contact angle
is a more important parameter than the secondary post height in
regard to the permeability. In regard to the secondary post height,
the permeability first decreases H2 increases, and then increases as
H2 increases beyond approximately 0.5. In this figure, 0.5 for H⁄2
represents the single-height configuration where H1 and H2 are
ð12Þ
same. Therefore, this figure indicates that the permeability of the

(a) Small H2 : X (b) Correct H2 : O (c) Large H2 : X

Fig. 6. Schematic diagram for secondary height range (left post in each case shows the primary post whose height is denoted as H1; accordingly the right post in each case is
the secondary height of height H2).
 S. Jeon, C. Byon / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 115 (2017) 879–885 883

micro-post wick always increases by employing the dual-height

0.021 cos = 0.2
configuration. This can be attributed to the fact that the effective
cos = 0.4
0.020 height of the liquid meniscus increases by the dual-height config-
cos = 0.6
uration provided that the Hm (the mean value of H1 and H2), and
cos = 0.8
0.019 other geometric parameters are fixed. This figure also shows that
cos = 0.99
the permeability increases as the post diameter decreases, due to
0.018
the fact that the effective channel width decreases as the post
K*

0.017 diameter increases for the fixed value of the pitch.

Fig. 9 shows that the nondimensional permeability of dual-
0.016 height micro-post wicks versus d⁄ and H⁄2, when the contact angle
0.015
has minimum value (cos h = 0.99), which corresponds to the best
wetting condition. This figure again demonstrates that the perme-
cosθ
0.014 ability has minimum value when the H⁄2 is approximately 0.5, and
can be enhanced by employing the dual-height configuration. This
0.013
figure also shows that the permeability decreases as the post diam-
0.35 0.40 0.45 0.50 0.55 0.60 0.65 eter increases.
H2*
3.4. Correlation for permeability
(a) d* = 0.3
As discussed in the previous section, we note that the effective
0.015 liquid meniscus height is a key factor for understanding the perme-
cos = 0.2 ability enhancement of the dual-height micro-post wicks. Our pre-
cos = 0.4 vious study [2] also demonstrated that the permeability of the
0.014 cos = 0.6 micro-post wick is significantly dependent on the effective liquid
cos = 0.8 height. In order to obtain the expression for predicting the effective
cos = 0.99 liquid height of dual-height micro-post wicks as a function of geo-
0.013
metric parameters, we conducted an extensive SE simulation. From
the results, it has been concluded that the effective liquid height
K*

0.012 varies almost in line with the mean post height, suggesting that
the difference between the effective liquid height and the mean
post height at the corresponding geometry remains approximately
0.011 constant.
In accordance with the results mentioned above, we obtained
cosθ Fig. 10. In this figure, the DH⁄ is the nondimensional height differ-
0.010
enc between the effective liquid height and the mean post height,
and is defined as follows:
0.35 0.40 0.45 0.50 0.55 0.60 0.65
Hm  Heff
H2* DH  ¼ ð13Þ
l
*
(b) d = 0.4 where Heff is the effective liquid height. This figure indicates that
DH⁄ non-linearly decreases with increasing the post height or
increasing the contact angle. In other words, the effective liquid
0.0095
cos = 0.2 height increases with increasing the post height or increasing the
cos = 0.4
0.0090
cos = 0.6
0.026
cos = 0.8
0.0085 d* = 0.2
cos = 0.99 0.024
d* = 0.3
0.022 d* = 0.4
0.0080
0.020 d* = 0.5
K*

d* = 0.6
0.0075 0.018

0.016
K*

0.0070 0.014
cosθ 0.012
0.0065
0.010

0.008
0.0060
0.35 0.40 0.45 0.50 0.55 0.60 0.65 0.006
H2* 0.004

(c) d* = 0.5 0.35 0.40 0.45 0.50 0.55 0.60 0.65

H2*
Fig. 8. Nondimensional permeability of dual-height micro-post wicks for various d*
and contact angles (H*1 = 0.5).
Fig. 9. Nondimensional permeability of dual-height micro-post wicks (cos h = 0.99).
884 S. Jeon, C. Byon / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 115 (2017) 879–885

0.12 3.5. Capillary pressure of dual-height micro-post wicks

cos 0.2
cos 0.4 Alongside the permeability, the capillary pressure is regarded as
0.10
cos 0.6 another important parameter for the capillary pumping ability of
cos 0.8 the micro-porous structures. As illustrated in Section 2, we esti-
0.08 cos 0.99 mated the capillary pressure of the dual-height micro-post wick
for various geometric parameters. Fig. 11 shows the results for
ΔH*

0.06
the capillary pressure. As shown in this figure, the capillary pres-
sure has its maximum value approximately when the secondary
post height is same with the primary post height, which means
0.04 the dual-height configuration increases the effective radius of
meniscus curvature, and thereby reduce the capillary pressure.
0.02 The capillary pressure is shown to decrease as the post height
increases, due to the narrowed channel width and reduced effec-
tive radius of meniscus curvature.
0.00
0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6
4. Conclusion
d*

Fig. 10. The effective liquid height in dual-height micro-post wicks. In this study, the permeability of the dual-height micro-post
wicks is investigated numerically with taking into account the
shape of meniscus. The meniscus shape of liquid in dual-height
contact angle. From Fig. 10, the following correlation for DH⁄ is micro-post wicks is estimated based on surface energy minimiza-
developed. tion algorithm. The estimated meniscus shape is then imported
into a CFD study for predicting the permeability using the Darcy’s
DH ¼ 0:3487  3:4544 cos h þ 10:97 cos h2  13:322 cos h3 law. The effects of contact angle, post height, and post diameter on
þ 5:4912 cos h4 þ ð3:218 þ 32:736 cos h  99:065 the permeability of the dual-height micro-post wicks are investi-

gated in this study. From this study, the following conclusions have
 cos h2 þ 118:37 cos h3  48:11 cos h4 Þd þ ð8:211 been derived:
 86:467 cos h þ 267:17 cos h2  309:65 cos h3
2 (1) There exists a finite range for the secondary height of the
þ 124:52 cos h4 Þd þ ð7:0113 þ 74:033 cos h post according to the given primary post height. This range
3
 222:33 cos h2 þ 261:15 cos h3  104:03 cos h4 Þd ð14Þ is shown to be enlarged as the contact angle decreases and
hardly affected by the post height.
Based on the correlation for effective liquid height represented (2) The permeability of the dual-height micro-post wick is
by Eqs. (13) and (14), the following correlation for predicting the shown to increase monotonically as either the primary
permeability of the dual-height micro-post wick can be obtained. height or the secondary height increases. The permeability
2  qffiffiffiffiffiffi  3 increases as the contact angle increases and the post diame-
exp 2 Ke2D Heff  1 ter decreases.
6 7
K ¼ K1 K2 K 2D 6
41  qffiffiffiffiffiffi   qffiffiffiffiffiffi  7
5 ð15Þ (3) The dual-height configuration can bring about enhanced
e H exp 2 Ke2D Heff þ 1 permeability compared with single-height configuration
K 2D eff
with same mean post height. On the other hand, the capil-
lary pressure generally decreases by the dual-height
where e is two-dimensional porosity, and K2D is the two- configuration.
dimensional permeability of the hexagonal circle array, which are
defined as follows, respectively [2].
 2
p d
e ¼ 1  pffiffiffi ð16Þ 60000
2 3 l d* = 0.2
d* = 0.3
h i 50000 d* = 0.4
2
ln ð1  eÞ0:5
 0:745 þ ð1  eÞ  0:25ð1  eÞ 2
d* = 0.5
K 2D ¼ l ð17Þ d* = 0.6
4p
40000
Pc (Pa)

where K1 and K2 are correction factors for considering the variation

of wetted area and the channel cross section area, respectively, and 30000
are defined as follows:
20000
ed
Heff þ 4ð1 d*
eÞ
K1 ¼ ed
ð18Þ
H þ 4ð1 eÞ 10000

Heff 0
K2 ¼ ð19Þ 0.35 0.40 0.45 0.50 0.55 0.60 0.65
Hm
H2*
Eq. (15) is shown to excellently predict the numerical results within
the error of 5% for the entire simulated range. Fig. 11. Capillary pressure of dual-height micro-post wicks (cos h = 0.99).
 S. Jeon, C. Byon / International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer 115 (2017) 879–885
(4) Based on the numerical results, a correlation for predicting
the permeability of the dual-height micro-post wick has
been proposed, as represented by Eq. (15).
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the 2017 Research Fund
(1.170062.01) of UNIST (Ulsan National Institute of Science & Tech-
nology) This research was also supported by Basic Science
Research Program through the National Research Foundation of
Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future
Planning (2017R1A2A2A05000770). This research was also finan-
cially supported in part the Energy Technology Development Pro-
gram of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and
Planning (KETEP) and the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy
(MOTIE) of the Republic of Korea (No. 20153030012870).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.
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