Professor Kyungtae Park's research team proposes a new seawater desalination process
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- Writer 커뮤니케이션팀
- 보도일자 2021-11-15
A research team led by Professor Kyungtae Park of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Sookmyung Women’s University has proposed a new seawater desalination process using the cooling of liquefied natural gas.
This research was carried out with support from the National Research Foundation of Korea for basic research projects, and the research results were published online on September 24th (Fri) in ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering (IF= 8.198, Top 10% in Chemical Engineering), an internationally renowned academic journal. This thesis was participated by Sanghyun Lee, a master＇s student in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, as the lead author, Ph.D. Judong Lee and Ph.D. Dongha Lim of the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology as the participating authors, and Professor Kyungtae Park as the corresponding author.
Liquefied natural gas is stored at a temperature of minus 162 degrees Celsius at normal pressure, with the main component being methane. The stored liquefied natural gas is mainly vaporized using seawater and then supplied to users as city gas. In this process, about 800 kJ of energy per 1 kg of LNG is thrown into the sea.
In light of this, the research team proposed a new seawater desalination process using LNG cooling and gas hydrate for desalination (IF=9.501, top 5% in Water Resources, lead author master＇s student Sanghyun Lee, corresponding author Professor Kyungtae Park) in January. The newly proposed process by the research team is an innovative freshwater production process that theoretically eliminates the cost of freshwater production by supplementing the problems of the process proposed in January and improving the efficiency of the process.
Professor Park said, “In the past, dumping LNG coolant into the sea was taken for granted, but in a society where sustainable growth is emphasized, this should not be overlooked any longer,” and “through the results of this study, we would like to make a small contribution to raising the low utilization rate of LNG coolant in Korea.”
Sanghyeon Lee, a master＇s student who participated as the lead author in this study, said, "I am glad that a series of studies using LNG cooling have been internationally recognized. As a follow-up study, we are conducting research to produce hydrogen at a low cost using LNG cooling, and this is also expected to help Korea move toward a sustainable society.”
