Kyu Taek Cho
Associate Professor
Department of Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering and Engineering Technology
Office: EB 202, Tel: 815-753-3346
E-mail: kcho@niu.edu
Adviser for student chapter of ASHRAE at NIU
EDUCATION AND PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
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Associate Professor, Northern Illinois University, 2020 - Present
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Assistant Professor, Northern Illinois University, 2014 - 2020
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Postdoc/research staff, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 2010 - 2014
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Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University in 2010
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Senior Researcher, Advanced R&D Center of Hyundai/Kia Motor Company, 1997- 2009
RESEARCH AREA
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Physical electrochemistry at the interface between electrode and electrolyte
: mechanism of growth/breakdown of oxide layer (metal-air batteries), active control of SEI layer
(lithium-ion batteries), dendrite growth and interfacial resistance (all solid state batteries)
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Transport phenomena in porous structure in electrochemical system
: capillary, phase-induced, and forced flow in porous material (fuel cell and redox flow batteries)
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Physco-chemical adsorption mechanism, autocatalytic reaction, and kinetics
: electrocoagulation to treat wastewater, electrolysis to produce the renewable fuels (H2)
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Additive manufacturing
: melt pool dynamics, surface and porosity control, grain size control, analysis of metal powder flow,
artificial neural network.
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Design of heat and mass transfer system
COURSES I HAVE TAUGHT
MEE 340 (Fluid mechanics), MEE 352 (Heat transfer), MEE 390 (Experimental method)
MEE 454/554 (Alternative and renewable energy), MEE 452 (Design of thermal systems), MEE 456/556 (Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage System), MEE 640 (Advanced fluid mechanics), MEE 656 (Convective heat transfer), and MEE 6XX (Heat and Mass Transfer in Porous Media).
GROUP MEMBER
Ph.D Students
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Christopher Welch (since spring 2019): numerical study of mechanical electrode synthesis for the next-generation batteries.
Master Students
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Swachwa Dey (since fall 2019): numerical study for electro-coagulation wastewater treatment.
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Jose Gonzalez (since spring 2020): experiment in additive manufacturing (co-advising).
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Sina Tayebati (since spring 2020): machine learning study for additive manufacturing.
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Porfirio Navar (since spring 2020): melt-pool dynamics model for additive manufacturing process
(co-advising). -
Adam Cotton (since spring 2021): experiment and modeling study of wastewater treatment system.
Undergraduate Students
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Adam Madey: FEA thermal stress analysis
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Kaylen Platt: CFD modeling study
COLLABORATORS
Dr. Venkat Srinivasan, the director of the Argonne Collaborative Center for Energy Storage Science (ACCESS) and deputy director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR).
: Computational modeling of next-generation batteries
Dr. John Shelton, Assistant professor of mechanical engineering at NIU
: Additive manufacturing, energy storage system, solar system.
Dr. Federico Sciammarella, President & CTO, MxD
: Research for additive manufacturing.
Dr. Piyush Sabharwall, Research Scientist, Advanced Heat Transport Lead at Idaho National Lab
: Research for additive manufacturing, and thermal systems.
Dr. Isabella Van Rooyen, Distinguished Staff Scientist at Idaho National Lab
: Research for additive manufacturing.
Dr. Tao Xu, Professor of chemistry department at NIU
: development of advanced catalyst and electrode materials
​Dr. Narayan S. Hosmane, Distinguished Professor of chemistry department at NIU
: study of electrolyte for electrochemical systems