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Prof. Kyu Taek Cho

Welcome from Professor Cho

 

Prof. K. T. Cho received his Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University, 2010 after more than 10 years work at Hyundai Motor Company, S. Korea as a senior researcher to develop fuel cell vehicle systems.  He continued to work on electrochemical systems such as flow batteries, lithium sulfur batteries, and lithium ion batteries (especially silicon anode material) at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, CA as a research staff.  In August 2014, he moved to Northern Illinois University as an assistant professor in Mechanical Engineering.

 

Dr. Cho has wide educational backgrounds having degrees from various fields such as bachelor’s degree from chemical engineering, master’s degrees from material engineering (polymer synthesis) and mechanical engineering (water management in fuel cell), and Ph.D from mechanical engineering (multiphase transport in porous media).  And his understandings combined with the wide education, actual experience in industry, and fundamental research in national lab has guided him to do the cutting-edge research in electrochemical energy system. 

 

His research interests include advanced electrochemical energy systems such as flow batteries, fuel cells, and batteries and advanced thermal energy system utilizing nanofluids.

Group News

- February 2021: Adam Cotton (BS/MS student) joined the research group

- February 2021: Dr. Cho received a research award from Illinois Innovation Network.

- December 2020: Swachwa Dey finished the MS thesis proposal.

- September 2020: A research contract was made to support modeling work to Argonne National Lab for development of the next

                               generation batteries.

- June 2020: A contract of a research project for Idaho National Laboratory was made, and three students (one Ph.D student,

                    one master student, and one undergraduate student) will work on this project and Dr. Cho will work as a co-PI.

- June 2020: A paper "Flow-Field Geometry Effect on H2-Iron Redox Flow Battery" authored by S. Cho, C. Janis, CJ. Inc, K.T. Cho,

                    accepted in Journal of Energy Engineering.

- May 2020: Dr. Cho was awarded from NASA (Illinois Space Grant Consortium) for a proposal "Feasibility Study of a Novel

                    Wastewater Treatment Technology for Space Missions of NASA", and an advanced wastewater treatment system

                    called “electrocoagulation” will be developed to provide clean water for NASA space missions.

- April 2020: Luiz and Jose were hired as intern students for Idaho National Laboratory, and they will work on the ongoing project

                    with INL.

- April 2020: A paper"Analysis of Oxide Film in Ionic Liquid Based Aluminum Air Battery", authored by C. Welch, A. Mohammad, 

                     N. Hosmane, Lu Zhang, and K.T. Cho, publised in Energies (2020), 13, 2014; doi:10.3390/en13082014.

- January 2020: A paper "Implementation and Optimization of a Variable Speed Coolant Pump in a Powertrain Cooling System",

                          accepted in SAE International Journal of Commercial Vehicles.

- January 2020: Two new graduate students joined our research group: Sina Tayebati who will work on analyzing the interfacial

         phenomena between solid and electroyte, and Porfirio Navar who will work on investigating the effect of density and size

         distribution of metal powders on melt pool geometry in additive manufacturing process.

- November 2019: A paper of "Analysis of the effect of hydrogen-evolving side reaction in the aqueous aluminum-air battery" was

                             accepted in Electrochimica Acta. Congratulation

- October 2019: Adebayo passed the defense of Master degree with study of electro-coagulation for wastewater treatment.

  Luis passed the defense of Master degree with topic of experimental/numerical study of additive manufacturing. Congratulation.  

- September 2019: Dr. Cho had an invited talk about his research on electrochemical energy system in the department of

                             mechanical engineering at university of Connecticut.

- August 2019: Swachwa Dey joined our group, and he will focus on numerical study of flow battery system

- August 2019: A paper "Activation of Carbon Porous Paper for Alkaline Alcoholic Fuel Cells" authored by Deva Harsha Perugupalli,

                        Tao Xu, and Kyu Taek Cho published in energies.

- August 2019: Dr. Cho is appointed as a guest editor for special issue "Experiment, Modeling Research and Actual System 

                        Applications on Redox Flow Battery" on the processes journal.

- July 2019: Dr. Cho's article (membrane-less H2-iron flow battery) was featured online at Advanced Engineering

- June 2019: A patent "SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR RETURNING MATERIAL FROM THE Br2 SIDE OF AN H2/Br2 FLOW

                     BATTERY BACK AFTER CROSSOVER" co-invented by Edward Knudsen, Paul Albertus, Michael C. Tucker,

                     Kyu Taek Cho, Adam Z. Weber was filed in US patent. Patent number: US 10326153 B2.

- May 2019: Dr. Cho attended ECS conference at Dallas, TX, and he presented 3 talks about "numerical analysis of hydrogen-

                    evolving side reaction on the performance of aqueous Al-Air battery", "Analysis of Oxide Film on Aluminum Electrode

                    in Ionic Liquid Based Aluminum Air Battery" "Redox-Mediated Bromate Based Electrochemical Energy System

                    (Aqueous multi-electron RFB )"

- May 2019: The project with ASTG was renewed for additional six months. Congratulation.

- March 2019: Luis Nunez joined our group, and he will focus on numerical analysis of additive manufacturing process.

                       Sarah Johnson joined our group as a undergraduate research assistant, and she will focus on testing Al-air battery.

- Jan. 2019: Prof. Hyunchul Ju at Inha University, S. Korea visited Dr. Cho's group for his sabbatical leave for one and half years.

                    Welcome, and I hope it leads to a great collaboration of research.

- Jan. 2019: Dr. Cho received external grant from Argonne National Laboratory for non-aqueous flow battery. Congratulation.

- Jan. 2019: A paper "Redox-mediated bromate based electrochemical energy system" authored by Talha and Dr. Cho was

                    published in Journal of the electrochemical society. Congratulation.

- Jan. 2019: John Wozny and Mian Muhammad Ali Raza joined our group. John will conduct experimental work and Ali will focus

                    on numerical analysis of flow battery systems.

Research Highlight

Membrane-less H2
Iron Redox Flow Battery.
: featured on Advanced Engineering.

Northern Illinois University scientists were the first to develop membrane-less hydrogen iron redox flow battery for solving the challenges in conventional systems. To understand underlying physics, they developed a physics-based mathematical model to investigate the electrochemical behavior of the reactants during the system operation. Interestingly, the system proved effective for solving the challenging issues. It is expected that results of this research will provide essential information to advance knowledge and technology for future flow battery systems. Their research work is currently published in Journal of Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage.

Flow batteries provide an energy-storage solution for various grid-related stability and service issues that arise as renewable-energy-generation technologies are adopted. Among the most promising flow-battery systems are those using hydrogen/halogen redox couples, which promise the possibility of meeting the cost target of the US Department of Energy (DOE), due to their fast and reversible kinetics and low materials cost. However, significant critical issues and barriers for their adoption remain. In this review of halogen/hydrogen systems, technical and performance issues, and research and development progress are reviewed. The information in this review can be used as a technical guide for research and development of related redox-flow-battery systems and other electrochemical technologies.

For storage of grid-scale electrical energy, redox-flow batteries (RFBs) are considered promising technologies. This paper explores the influence of electrolyte composition and ion transport on cell performance by using an integrated approach of experiments and cost modeling. In particular, the impact of the area-specific resistance on system capability is elucidated for the hydrogen/bromine RFB. The experimental data demonstrate very good performance with 1.46 W/cm2 peak power and 4Acm2 limiting current density at ambient conditions for an optimal cell design and reactant concentrations.  The data and cost model results show that higher concentrations
of RFB reactants do not necessarily result in lower capital cost as there is a tradeoff between cell performance and storage (tank) requirements. In addition, the discharge
time and overall efficiency demonstrate nonlinear effects on system cost, with a 3 to 4 hour minimum discharge time showing a key transition to a plateau in terms of cost
for typical RFB systems. The presented results are applicable to many different RFB chemistries and technologies and highlight the importance of ohmic effects and associated area-specific resistance on RFB viability.

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