분리공정연구실

Separation processes become progressively significant in this era. A necessity for the design of novel separation processes for biotechnology and nanotechnology emerges, which demands a low level of impurities. The rise of environmental concerns for resource recovery and recycling leads us to devise additional separation units or improve traditional separation methods. More importantly, the separation process uses approximately 45 – 55 % of the industrial energy use. Thus, the design of novel separation processes that are energy-efficient, cost-effective, and environmentally benign has become one of the most crucial tasks that humankind encounters. The overarching goal of our group is to design and operate an environmentally friendly and energy-efficient separation process based on theoretical methods in the field of physical chemistry and chemical physics, and properly designed experiments. To this end, we employ the following theoretical and experimental methods. In a theoretical aspect, molecular simulations and statistical mechanical models from the fluctuation theory of solutions to the kinetic mean-field model are exploited to understand the chemical systems at the molecular level and to prove the initial idea of novel separation techniques. These molecular-level insights are transferred to predict bulk thermodynamic and kinetic properties of materials based on equations of state or other semi-empirical models. In the experimental side, our group carries out thermodynamic and dynamic measurements of chemical systems and design, build, and operate lab-scale separation units. Theoretical and experimental results are complementary. They are going to be compared for improving the theory of thermodynamics and kinetics, and vice versa. The following is our specific rese