Organized by Nicholas Kotov, Joseph B. and Florence V. Cejka Professor of Chemical Engineering. This seminar is open to all. Chemical Engineering faculty and graduate students are especially encouraged to attend, as well as Mechanical, Aerospace and Materials Science Engineering graduate students.

Morning refreshments will be available at 8:30 a.m. before the lecture.

Abstract:
Graphene Oxide Liquid Crystal (GOLC) is an intriguing 2D carbon based soft material, which exhibits nematic type colloidal discotic liquid crystallinity with the orientational ordering of graphene oxide flakes in good solvents, including water. Since our first discovery of GOLC in aqueous dispersion at 2009, this interesting mesophase has been utilized over world-wide for many different application fields, such as liquid crystalline graphene fiber spinning, highly ordered graphene membrane/film production for water treatment, nanoporous graphene assembly for energy/environmental applications and so on. Interestingly, GOLC also allow us a valuable opportunity for the highly ordered molecular scale assembly of functional nanoscale structures. This presentation will introduce our current status of GOLC and other 2D material research particularly focusing on the nanoscale assembly of functional nanostructures, including highly oriented 1D fibers, 2D films and 3D nanoporous structures. In particular, human muscle inspired graphene based nanocomposite fiber actuators will be highlighted along with its interesting demonstration for biomimetic behaviors. Besides, relevant research works associated to the nanoscale assembly and chemical modification of various low dimensional materials, including 2D TMDs and MXene, will be presented particularly aiming at energy and environmental applications. In the last part of presentation, our first discovery of single atom catalyst will be introduced, including other relevant research efforts exploiting the customized heteroelement doping of graphene based structures.

Bio:
Prof. Sang Ouk Kim is a KAIST Chair Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at KAIST, South Korea and currently serving as the directors for the National Creative Research Initiative Center for Multi-Dimensional Directed Nanoscale Assembly (NRF funding), and the KAIST Institute for Nanocentury. Prof. Kim joined the Department of Materials Science & Engineering of KAIST as an assistant professor in 2004. His main research interest is the directed nanoscale assembly of soft materials towards novel materials discovery, including block copolymers and low-dimensional materials for a broad range of advanced applications, including electronics, energy, environmental and biomedical fields. Prof. Kim’s research highlights is the world-first discovery of graphene oxide liquid crystal. Since his original contribution, graphene based material fabrication has been rapidly advancing towards the promising applications in the form of 1D fibres, 2D films, and 3D nanoassembled structures and, more recently, artificial muscle. Graphene oxide liquid crystal offers a valuable precursor state for the commercial mass-production high quality graphene platelets. His scientific contribution has been widely recognized by prestigious honours, including the Highly Cited Researcher from Clarivate Analytics (2018), the KAIST Grand Prize for Academic Excellence (2015) and Presidential Young Scientist Award (2013). He is currently serving as an associate editor of Energy Storage Materials (Elsevier) as well as editorial advisors or board members for Accounts of Materials Research (ACS), Small (Wiley), ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (ACS), Molecular Systems Design & Engineering (RSC) and so on. He is also appointed as a conference chair for 2025 MRS Meeting to be held in Seattle, US. To date, He has published more than 280 SCI Journal papers and 100 patens relevant to the nanomaterials science. Based on the Google Scholar statistics, Prof. Kim’s H-index is 88 and the total citation number is more than 28000.