KOSEN 한인과학기술자네트워크

Our research focuses on high-performance polymers, polymer-based nanocomposite or hybrid materials and microporous polymer or inorganic materials, with particular emphasis on the transport and storage of small molecules and ions in these materials, which finds applications in areas such as fuel cells, organic batteries, barrier packaging, hydrogen storage, gas separations and liquid separations, etc.

The NSEL’s research portfolio consists of a wide array of strategic energy and environmental solutions with active research and development of advanced materials, including clean coal technologies, CO₂ capture and storage, energy and water sustainability, hydrogen technologies, air toxics and fine particulate, alternative fuels, biomass, water management, global climate change, energy-efficient technologies and contaminant cleanup. With these research efforts, our research’s goal is to develop separation processes and technologies that minimize waste and conserve natural resources and then to achieve the efficient and economical use of energy and to ensure a cleaner environment. In this regard, the NSEL will provides practical, cost-effective solutions to today’s most critical energy and environmental issues and challenges, including worldwide water scarcity problem.

Our group is organized around three broad topics: gas separation, liquid separation and fuel cells. Our research is being supported by a variety of governmental and industrial sponsors. Our research group belongs to both School of Chemical Engineering and Department of Energy Engineering. In particular, Department of Energy Engineering at Hanyang University was established by the financial support of the World Class University (WCU) project from The Korean Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST). Focus of WCU project is placed on supporting new growth-generation technologies in the field of energy and green environment engineering that will spearhead national development. Undergraduate degree programs in the new department will be established and opened by the spring semester of 2010, and graduate programs will be in operation by the fall semester of 2009. Our group participates in this WCU project, and all graduate students will be financially supported by the project.

Established in 2008, NSEL is located in the Fusion Technology Center (FTC) Building at Hanyang University (Seoul Campus), where it occupies over 3500 square feet of labs & office space. NSEL has worked with faculty in the Department of Material Science and Engineering and in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Hanyang University, collaborating on research projects, supporting graduate students, and stimulating education activities related to energy. Our group is primarily Chemical Engineering students, but we also have students from Chemistry, Environmental, Materials and Science Engineering in the group, so it provides a multidisciplinary experience in many different aspects of fundamental material science, material characterization, and material chemistry closely related with energy and environment.

Our recent research efforts and on-going studies have focused on (1) extraordinary microporous organic polymers having ‘Goldilocks’ pore size distribution, where the control of irreversible chain conformations in high-temperature, rigid polymers can cause major changes in innerspace on subnanometric scale and then leads to excellent transport and separation properties, (2) nanoporous carbon and carbon-silica, where the sophisticated material design of self assembly polymeric precursors can tailor the most desirable pore sizes and shapes in porous inorganic media useful for adsorption and separation, (3) High-temperature polymer-based membranes for advanced catalytic water gas shift reactor for hydrogen production, (4) hydrophilic-hydrophobic nanostructured polymers for desalination which have high water permeability and high salt rejection as well as low-fouling properties, (5) facile coating and surface modification of water purification membrane materials to reduce fouling and improve oxidative attack (e.g., chlorine), (6) atomic and mesoscale molecular simulation of organic polymeric materials for gas separation and liquid separation applications, and (7) reactive materials for barrier packaging. In each of these researches, our group combines fundamental polymer science, polymer and inorganic synthesis, and advanced materials characterization methods to develop an understanding of the structure of advanced materials and their performance properties for the applications of interest such as energy and environmental resources.