Prof. Hyun-Seog Roh, Director of the BK 21 FOUR project and Full Professor of the Department of Environmental and Energy Engineering at Yonsei University in Wonju, South Korea, visited IAPME on January 09, 2025. During his visiting, we had a fruitful discussion for the collaboration between two groups, especially on new and renewable energies, such as green hydrogen production. He gave a talk on “Current research trends for target-oriented WGS reactions dealing with diverse types of resources”.
Prof. Hyun-Seog Roh received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, in 2001. He began his career at Yonsei University in 2008, after a research career at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, Pacific Northwest National Lab. in Richland, and the Korea Institute of Energy Research. Prof. Roh serves on the editorial boards of Journal of CO2 Utilization, Catalysts, and Applied Sciences. His achievements include the publication of more than 237 papers in scientific literature and 29 patents. For the fourth consecutive year, he has been named in the world’s top 2 percent of scientists list selected by Professor John Ioannidis from Stanford University published in PLOS Biology. His research interests are primarily in environmental catalysis, including catalyst design, manufacture, characterization, and application, as well as reactor design for hydrogen production through reforming and the water-gas shift reaction.
During the talk, Prof. Roh mentioned that green hydrogen is receiving special attention, and research on upcycling energy resources, including natural gas, coal, waste, and biomass, is in the spotlight. Catalytic reactions are often essential for producing high-value chemicals from these resources. The water–gas shift (WGS, CO + H2O → CO2 + H2) reaction is one of the most useful catalytic pathways for upcycling various types of synthesis gas. Currently, the application range of WGS reactions has further expanded to the upcycling of waste, biomass, and coal-derived synthesis gas. However, the reaction conditions and catalysts should be carefully customized for each resource by considering their characteristics. Prof. Roh presented his research on the reaction conditions and catalysts for the WGS reactions that have dealt with various types of feed gases over the last 10 years to understand the development progress. Based on the categorization (by the type of feed gas), the tested catalysts, capacity, temperature, feed gas composition, steam-to-carbon ratio, and catalyst performance were systematically discussed. The current research trends and perspectives for target-oriented WGS reactions in each type of feed gas source, which can give clues for customization were given at the end of his talk.
We also talked about the possibility for the tightened connection between University of Macau and Yonsei University in the future. After our discussion, Prof. Roh had lab and campus tours.
