Time: 10:00, May 7, 2015

Venue: Room 102, No. 2 Laboratory Building

Speaker: Dr. Min Sung Park

                  Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Title: The Project Green-Eagle: A New Bio-Jet Fuel Initiative in Korea

Introduction to the Lecture: 

While Korea has developed an extremely competitive technology in the field of semiconductor and information technology industry, there is a strong need for Korea to develop new technology in renewable energy not only for maintaining economic competitiveness in new global markets, but also for establishing energy security and independence. With this realization, Korea has established a Green Technology Industry Road Map and has been investing heavily in basic R&D, demonstration, commercialization, and business development in clean-tech industry. Advanced Biomass R&D Center (ABC),the largest university-national laboratory-industry partnership-based consortium in Korea (US $110 million), has been developing transformative scientific, technological, and engineering solutions to produce drop-in biofuels using microalgae. Since October of 2010, ABC has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers and filed over 100 patents. Equipped with the recent success and progress in mass cultivation of microalgae, development of a low-energy cost harvesting technology and a novel biodiesel production platform, ABC recently launched a new initiative called “The Project Green-Eagle” that aims at producing bio-jet fuels that can be used in military aircrafts in close collaborations with leading industry and national laboratory partners such as SK and Korea Energy Research Institute. ABC is working closely with Korean Air Force of MND (Ministry of National Defense, Korea) to test the bio-jet fuels that will be produced by ABC. The successful execution of the Project Green-Eagle will allow Korea to be in one of the global leadership positions in biomass derived liquid jet fuels. In this presentation, I will discuss the current technical progress of the entire value chain of producing bio jet fuels from microalgal biomass. (This work was supported by the Advanced Biomass R&D Center of Korea Grant funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future (ABC-2011-K000908)

Introduction to the Speaker:

Name: Min Sung Park

    Title:

    Adjunct Professor, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

    Deputy Director, Advanced Biomass R&D Center

    Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology，Korea

    Current Research Interests:

    Biofuels and Bioproducts

    1. Understanding of lipid/hydrocarbon synthetic pathways of microalgae.

    2. Development of genetic tool box for biofuels and bioproducts.

    3. Synthetic-biology based improvement of microalgae for biofuels production.

    4. Process development of the entire value chain of algal biofuels.

    5. Production of high value products using microalgal cell factory.

    6. Development of biocomposite.

    Career Highlights:

    1.Leadership team member that created TB Structural Genomics Consortium

    (NIH, $30 million, 2000),

    2.Leadership team member that created National Alliance for Algal Biofuels and

    Bioproducts (NAABB) ($50 million EERE/DOE funding plus $17 million

    private industry funding, 2010).

    3.Founded Northern New Mexico Education Technology Consortium and built

    Northern New Mexico Math and Science Academy.

    4.Currently serving as the Deputy Director of Advanced Biomass R&D Center

    of Korea ($110 million) which is funded by Korea Ministry of Science,Technology,

    ICT, and Future Planning.

    Awards and Honors:

    Distinguished Performance Award, Los Alamos National Laboratory (2004, 2010)

    Los Alamos Award, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2010

    Los Alamos National Laboratory Service Recognition (1994, 1999, 2004, 2009)

    Community Service Award, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2003

    Achievement Award, Bioscience Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2001, 2002, 2003

    Nominee, Member, White House Commission for Asian Pacific American,

    nominated by the Secretary of Department of Energy, Bill Richardson, 1999

    Young Investigator Award, 9th International Congress of Radiation Research, 1990

    Sigma Xi Scientific Excellence Award, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1988

    Center for Excellence Science Alliance Award, University of Tennessee, Knoxville,

    1985-1989, presented to most outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant

    Yang Hyun Won Foundation Scholarship, 1981-19982