Dr. Hae-Kwon Jeong, professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, has been awarded the 2020 Institute Award for Excellence in Industrial Gases Technology by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). This award recognizes an individual's sustained excellence in contributing to the advancement of technology in the production, distribution and application of industrial gases.
Jeong’s research focuses primarily on chemical purification and separation. Specifically, Jeong and his research team have developed a novel membrane-based method to separate light olefins from paraffins. This method utilizes metal-organic frameworks as the membrane material, especially Zeolitic-imidazolate frameworks (ZIF), which are composed of metal ions (usually Zn2+ or Co2+) and imidazole-derived organic linkers. Traditionally, ZIF membranes, while quite effective in olefin- paraffin separations, have been quite expensive to produce. However, Jeong has developed a method that drastically reduces the effective thickness of the ZIF membranes while increasing the membrane area, drastically reducing the cost of production.
Jeong says his research group is focused on refining and scaling up the production of the membranes. “Currently, my group has been developing innovative strategies for large-scale production of tunable ZIF membranes for custom gas separations.”
Jeong hopes the award will lead to wider adoption and more research in the area of ZIF-based separations. “This recognition will certainly draw more interest from both academia and industries.”
Finally, Jeong acknowledged his supporters and contributors. “I would like to thank my academic advisor, Dr. Michael Tsapatsis at Johns Hopkins, for his training and guidance. Also, I want to thank my former and current students and postdocs for their hard work. Lastly, I'm indebted to the department for the support.”