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Updated: Apr 26, 2026

Light-driven Enzymatic Decarboxylation
Published on: May 22, 2016
Controllable pneumatic generator based on the catalytic decomposition of hydrogen peroxide
Kyung-Rok Kim1, Kyung-Soo Kim1, Soohyun Kim1
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, KAIST, 305-701 Daejeon, South Korea.
Abstract:
This paper presents a novel compact and controllable pneumatic generator that uses hydrogen peroxide decomposition. A fuel micro-injector using a piston-pump mechanism is devised and tested to control the chemical decomposition rate. By controlling the injection rate, the feedback controller maintains the pressure of the gas reservoir at a desired pressure level. Thermodynamic analysis and experiments are performed to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed pneumatic generator. Using a prototype of the pneumatic generator, it takes 6 s to reach 3.5 bars with a reservoir volume of 200 ml at the room temperature, which is sufficiently rapid and effective to maintain the repetitive lifting of a 1 kg mass.
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