Friday, November 6, 2015
10:00-11:00 a.m.
102 Colburn Lab
Ah-Hyung (Alissa) Park
Associate Professor
Lenfest Chair in Applied Climate Science
Earth and Environmental Engineering
Chemical Engineering
Columbia University
Ah-Hyung (Alissa) Park is the Lenfest Chair in Applied Climate Science at Columbia University and director of the Lenfest
Center for Sustainable Energy, where she researches issues in energy, environmental engineering and particle technology. Park
has received numerous honors and distinctions throughout her career as a researcher. Recently she was appointed a member
of the International Committee at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, where she was also vice-chair (2009-2011)
and chair (2011-2013) of the Fluidization and Fluid-Particle Systems Group and is currently treasurer (2010-present) of the
Particle Technology Forum. She also recently received the James Lee Young Investigator Award, the NSF Career Award, and
a nomination for the Packard Fellowship. In 2011, she was the distinguished speaker at the Womensphere Emerging Leaders
Global Summit. Park earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in chemical and biological engineering from the University of
British Columbia and a Ph.D. in chemical and biomolecular engineering from the Ohio State University.
Towards Sustainable Energy and Materials:
Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS)
Historically, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 fluctuated naturally on the timescales of ice ages. Concerns, however, stem from the
recent dramatic increase in CO2 concentration, which coincides with global industrial development. This rise is mainly due to the high use
of fossil fuels during power generation and chemical production. In order to meet the ever-increasing global energy demands while
stabilizing the CO2 level in the atmosphere, it is widely believed that current carbon emissions must be reduced by at least a factor of three.
The containment of CO2 involves three steps: separation, transportation, and storage. Until now, these technologies have been developed
independently of one another, which has resulted in complex and economically challenging large-scale designs. The future direction of carbon
management technologies now focuses on the integration of CO2 capture and storage schemes as well as CO2 conversion/utilization. In this
seminar, the latest global challenges of CCUS will be discussed as well as two novel carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) schemes that
are currently being developed in Park group. Nanoparticle Organic Hybrid Materials (NOHMs) are a new class of organic-inorganic hybrids
that consist of a hard nanoparticle core functionalized with a molecular organic (e.g., polymeric) corona that possesses a high degree of
chemical and physical tunability. NOHMs are non-volatile and stable over a very wide temperature range, which make them interesting
materials for various energy and environmental applications. It has recently been discovered that NOHMs have interesting electrolyte
properties which may allow the CO2 capture to be pulled by the in-situ CO2 conversion reactions. The second set of CO2 capture materials
is derived from Mg- and Ca-bearing minerals and industrial wastes. The main advantage of carbon mineralization is that it is the most
permanent and safe method of carbon storage, since the gaseous CO2 is fixed into a solid matrix of Mg-bearing minerals (e.g., serpentine)
forming a thermodynamically stable solid product. These carbon sequestration technologies can be integrated into the existing or new energy
and chemical conversion systems in order to improve their overall sustainability.