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Future of Petrochemical Industry: The Age of Bio-Refineries
The concept of bio-refinery is based on using biomass from seaweeds and non-edible plant sources to produce various materials.
Bio-refineries has been looked into with increasing interest in modern times due to the advent of global warming (and the subsequent changes in the atmosphere) and the exhaustion of natural resources.
However past 20 years of research in metabolic engineering had a crucial limitation; the need to improve the efficiency of the microorganisms that actually go about converting biomass into biochemical materials.
In order to compensate for the inefficiency, Professor Lee Sang Yeop combined systems biology, composite biology, evolutionary engineering to form ‘systems metabolic engineering’.
This allows combining various data to explain the organism’s state in a multi-dimensional scope and respond accordingly by controlling the metabolism.
The result of the experiment is set as the cover dissertation of ‘Trends in Biotechnology’ magazine’s August edition.
2011.07.28 View 12732 -
Wireless electric trams at Seoul Amusement Park begin full operations.
Photo by Hyung-Joon Jun
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wireless electric trams at Seoul Amusement Park begin full operations.
KAIST’s On-Line Electric Vehicle (OLEV) becomes an icon of green technology, particularly for young students who aspire to transform their nation into the “vanguard of sustainability.”
Seoul, South Korea, July 19, 2011—As young students wrap up their school work before summer vacation in late July, Seoul Grand Park, an amusement park located south of Seoul, is busily preparing to accommodate throngs of summer visitors. Among the park’s routine preparations, however, there is something new to introduce to guests this summer: three wireless electric trams have replaced the old diesel-powered carts used by passengers for transportation within the park.
The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the city of Seoul held a ceremony this morning, July 19, 2011, to celebrate their joint efforts to adopt a green public transportation system and presented park visitors with the three On-Line Electric Vehicles (OLEVs), which will be operated immediately thereafter. Approximately one hundred people, including science high school students across the nation, attended the ceremony and had a chance to ride the trams.
KAIST unveiled the prototype of an electric tram to the public in March 2010, and since then it has developed three commercial trams. The Korean government and the institute have worked on legal issues to embark on the full-scale commercialization of OLEV, and the long awaited approval from the government on such issues as standardization of the OLEV technology and road infrastructure, regulation of electromagnetic fields and electricity safety, and license and permits for vehicle eligibility, finally came through.
The On-Line Electric Vehicle (OLEV) is no ordinary electric car in that it is remotely charged via electromagnetic fields created by electric cables buried beneath the road. Unlike other currently available electric cars, OLEV can travel unlimited distances without having to stop to recharge. OLEV also has a small battery onboard, which enables the vehicle to travel on roads that are not equipped with underground power cables. This battery, however, is only one-fifth of the size of a conventional electric vehicle battery, resulting in considerable savings in the cost, size, and weight of the vehicle.
The OLEV project was initiated in 2009 as a method of resolving the battery problems of electric cars in a creative and disruptive way. KAIST came up with the idea of supplying electricity directly to the cars instead of depending solely on the onboard battery for power. Since then, the university has developed core technologies related to OLEV such as the “Shaped Magnetic Field in Resonance (SMFIR),” which enables an electric car to collect the magnetic fields and convert them into electricity, and the “Segment Technology,” which controls the flow of electromagnetic waves through an automatic power-on/shut-down system, thereby eliminating accidental exposure of the electromagnetic waves to pedestrians or non-OLEV cars.
According to KAIST, three types of OLEV have been developed thus far: electric buses, trams, and sport utility vehicles (SUVs). The technical specifications of the most recently developed OLEV (an electric bus), the OLEV research team at the university said, are as follows:
· Power cables are buried 15cm beneath the road surface.
· On average, over 80% power transmission efficiency is achieved.
· The distance gap between the road surface and the underbody of the vehicle is 20cm.
· The OLEV bus has a maximum electricity pickup capacity of 100kW.
· The OLEV bus complies with international standards for electromagnetic fields (below 24.1 mG).
The eco-friendly electric trams at Seoul Grand Park consume no fossil fuels and do not require any overhead wires or cables. Out of the total circular driving route (2.2km), only 16% of the road, 372.5m, has the embedded power lines, indicating that OLEV does not require extensive reconstruction of the road infrastructure. The city government of Seoul signed a memorandum of understanding with KAIST in 2009 as part of its initiatives to curtail emissions from public transportation and provide cleaner air to its citizens. Both parties plan to expand such collaboration to other transportation systems including buses in the future.
KAIST expects the OLEV technology to be applied in industries ranging from transportation to electronics, aviation, maritime transportation, robotics, and leisure. There are several ongoing international collaborative projects to utilize the OLEV technology for a variety of transportation needs, such as inner city commute systems (bus and trolley) and airport shuttle buses, in nations including Malaysia, US, Germany, and Denmark.
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More information about KAIST’s On-Line Electric Vehicle can be found at http://olev.co.kr/en/index.php. For any inquiries, please contact Lan Yoon at 82-42-350-2295 (cell: 82-10-2539-4303) or by email at hlyoon@kaist.ac.kr.
2011.07.22 View 16395 -
Mobile Harbor delivers the goods for container ships at sea by Reuters TV
Reuters TV introduced the Mobile Harbor showcase that was held on June 29, 2011 in Busan, Korea. For the article, please follow the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuADd3DqCQg
2011.07.11 View 7128 -
KAIST Successfully Demonstrates Mobile Harbor in the Open Sea
Busan, South Korea—Large container ships are no longer required to come into ports to transport cargo, as KAIST has developed an innovative technology that will transform the paradigm of today’s cargo handling operations. A Mobile Harbor is a vessel that carries a large stabilized crane with a smart spreader and multistage trolley system, enabling the loading and unloading of ship cargo on the wavy open sea. Following a successful docking of two vessels at sea in April of this year, KAIST conducted a full scope of Mobile Harbor operations in the inner sea of Busan, South Korea, on June 29, 2011.
Initiated in 2009, the Mobile Harbor (MH) is one of the university’s flagship research projects, which aims to provide a new growth engine that will lead the Korean economy to the next level of advancement, and to develop green technology through multidisciplinary and convergence research. The idea of MH came to light when thinking outside the box (why can’t a harbor go out to meet a ship on voyage and retrieve goods instead of ships coming into the harbor?) to improve problems relating to the current maritime transport system, such as port congestion, environmental issues caused by heavy sea transport, increased demand for supersized container ships, and the need for port construction and expansion.
The essential technology to establish a Mobile Harbor is a docking system and crane system that can overcome the obstacles imposed by the sea, i.e., waves and wind. Connecting two operating vessels of different sizes in the unpredictable and ever-changing environment of the sea was regarded as “impossible” and had never been tried before, but, on April 26, 2011, KAIST successfully demonstrated the technology to moor vessels safely and securely.
The Mobile Harbor has a unique way of mooring vessels that are anchored at sea: its flexibly designed robot arms with a square-shape vacuum suction pad at the tip reach out and attach to the hull of a container ship for docking. Each robot arm is connected to a cable and winch that further add stability to the Mobile Harbor. Foam-filled fenders are placed between the Mobile Harbor and the container ship, thereby maintaining a safe distance to prevent collisions.
The crane system consists of a multistage trolley, smart spreader, and tension controller, all of which provide the crane with functionality and stability to move around cargo containers in the sea. The crane system also has various sensors like cameras and laser scanners, and therefore, it can gauge the movement of the spreader and ships as well as trace a target container in real time. As a result, the spreader, a container grabbing device, is free from the swing motions when lifting and putting down cargo and grabs a target container safely in the wavy open sea.
During today’s at-sea demonstration in Busan, a research team from the KAIST Mobile Harbor Center docked a Mobile Harbor (a barge ship) right next to a container vessel (the other barge ship) and repeated freight transport operations between the two ships, presenting the great potential to commercialize the Mobile Harbor technology.
The project has been implemented in collaboration with industries, research institutes, and universities in such fields as mechanical engineering, robotics, automation engineering, and ocean systems engineering. The demonstration proceeded with a wide range of participants including researchers, engineers, government officials, and entrepreneurs from Korea and around the world.
Byung-Man Kwak, Director of the KAIST Mobile Harbor Center, explained his feelings on the successful demonstration:
“It’s been a remarkable journey to develop a Mobile Harbor from scratch, and I’m genuinely thrilled to showcase what we have accomplished so far. Today’s demonstration of Mobile Harbor’s core technologies will really change the face of our maritime transportation system. We will be able to deliver more goods to global markets and consumers via sea route, not necessarily building more ports or expanding the existing harbors. KAIST’s Mobile Harbor will also significantly cut down the high cost related to overland transportation of cargo and in return, contribute to the reduction of carbon emission.”
The Center has received much interest in possible market migration and broader application of the Mobile Harbor from businesses and organizations, e.g., US Office of Naval Research, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals, Saudi Aramco, POSCO, and the Korean Navy.
2011.07.06 View 17919 -
Biomimetic Carbon Nanotube Fiber Synthesis Technology Developed
The byssus of the mussel allows it to live in harsh conditions where it is constantly battered by crashing waves by allowing the mussel to latch onto the seaside rocks. This particular characteristic of the mussel is due to the unique structure and high adhesiveness of the mussel’s byssus.
KAIST’s Professor Hong Soon Hyung (Department of Material Science and Engineering) and Professor Lee Hae Shin (Department of Chemistry) and the late Professor Park Tae Kwan (Department of Bio Engineering) were able to reproduce the mussel’s byssus using carbon nanotubes.
The carbon nanotube, since its discovery in 1991, was regarded as the next generation material due to its electrical, thermal, and mechanical properties. However due to its short length of several nanometers, its industrial use was limited.
The KAIST research team referred to the structure of the byssus of the mussel to solve this problem.
The byssus is composed of collagen fibers and Mefp-1 protein which are in a cross-linking structure. The Mefp-1 protein has catecholamine that allows it to bind strongly with the collagen fiber.
In the artificial structure, the carbon nanotube took on the role of the collagen fibers and the macromolecular adhesive took on the role of the catecholamine. The result was a fiber that was ultra-light and ultra-strong.
The results of the experiment were published in the Advanced Materials magazine and is patent registered both domestically and internationally.
2011.06.20 View 14107
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Yonhap News, Scientists Develop Nitrogen-Doped Graphene Supercapacitor, June 6, 2011
Yonhap News Agency, South Korea’s wire news agency, reported that KAIST’s research team developed “a new type of power storage technology using nitrogen and graphene.”
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsworld.php?id=591725
2011.06.08 View 10219
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New Scientist: Wind power harnesses the energy of galloping, June 2, 2011
Researchers from the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, KAIST, released their research results in Smart Materials and Structures on ways to “harness strange properties of turbulent airs.” They built a prototype that produces energy using a specific type of unstable airflow called “wake galloping.” New Scientist wrote an article about the paper, which appeared on June 2, 2011. For the article, please follow the link below.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028145.700-wind-power-harnesses-the-energy-of-galloping.html?full=true&print=true
2011.06.04 View 9969
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South Korean scientists use laser to inject drugs into brain by Bernama.com, May 26, 2011
Bernama.com, the Malaysian national news agency, reported on the recent development by a KAIST research team of a safe and cheap treatment method for various neurological diseases. For details, please follow the link:
http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v5/newsworld.php?id=589195
2011.05.31 View 10970
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President Seo Nam Pyo receives DTU Gold Medal
President Seo Nam Pyo receives DTU Gold Medal on the 6th of May in the DTU Annual Commemoration Day Ceremony.
The DTU has recognized the achievements, innovative ideas, and great effort made by President Seo in heightening the world level of engineering education and his success in improving the status of science and technology of Korea.
The Technical University of Denmark was established in 1829 and is known as the best engineering university in Scandinavia and awards a gold medal annually to a person that is recognized for their accomplishment in the field of science and technology.
2011.05.31 View 9015
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Professor Hwang Kyu Young Receives Outstanding Contributions Award from DASFAA
Professor Hwang Kyu Young received the 2011 Outstanding Contributions Award from the International Conference on Database Systems for Advanced Applications (DASFAA).
Professor Hwang was the Chairman, Vice Chairman, Executive, etc. of the DASFAA Steering Committee for the past 12 years and has been leading the development in the field of database in the Asia/Pacific Region. He was also the editor in chief of The VLDB Journal which is the leading magazine in the field of database and the member of ACM SIGMOD Jim Gray Dissertation Award Committee, VLDB 10-year Best Paper Award Committee, and IEEE ICDE Influential Paper Awards Committee. He receives the Outstanding Contributions Award for ensuring high standards in world database research.
2011.05.31 View 10445
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Research Conducted on the Development Policy of Medical Researchers in United States
The topic dealt in the paper was “The Vietnam War and Medical Research: Untold Legacy of the U.S. Doctor Draft and the NIH ‘Yellow Berets’” and basically deals how a Doctor Draft made a positive impact on improving the basic research of clinical medicine.
Professor Park received his Doctorate at Johns Hopkins University and came to KAIST in 2007.
Summary of Dissertation
From the start of the Korean War in 1950 to the end of the Vietnam War in 1973 a large number of medical school graduates were drafted to the army. Of those drafted, 100 personnel were chosen annually to focus on researching in the National Institute of Health who developed into leaders of the field.
For example, those who worked as a researcher at the National Institute instead of their armed services were 1.5 times more likely to become a tenured professor, 2 times more likely to be promoted to Dean of the department, and 3 times more likely to be the Dean. In addition, 9 out of 50 Nobel Prize winners in fields of natural sciences between 1985 and 2007 were from the same pool of researchers, and 10 out of 76 recipients of National Medal of Science were also from the same pool of researchers.
They were named the ‘Yellow Berets’ like the special forces ‘Green Berets’ and made great contribution to the field in implementing and executing the bench to beside culture that involves development in laboratories to clinical testing.
Professor Park maintains that there has to be improvements made in current policies to encourage research work in medical graduate schools.
2011.05.31 View 11946
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Korea Times on Mobile Harbor, May 29, 2011
The Korea Times mentioned KAIST’s Mobile Harbor in its recent article entitled “Korea-UAE partnership making big strides” dated May 29, 2011. While talking about the ongoing partnership efforts being made between Korea and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in many areas of industry, economy, and education, the paper picked the mobile harbor as an example of Korea’s green growth technology being developed by KAIST. For the article, please copy and paste the link.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/include/print.asp?newsIdx=87873
2011.05.30 View 11715