My life and Korean carbon society

My life and Korean carbon society

I became an instructor at Chungnam National University in 1976, and was at Cleveland State University as a visiting professor in 1980/1981. My major was Biochemical Engineering and I was studying the hydrolysis of biomass to obtain alternative energy sources (Gasohol). I presented my research results (Attrition Bioreactor) at an ACS meeting, and this work became one of the ‘applications and unit operations’ selected for presentation in “Biotechnology in Industry”, published by Ann Arbor Science. Later, I got a letter from Prof. Bosung Rhee, who got his Ph.D. at Karlsruhe University (under Prof. E. Fitzer) and who was a senior professor in my department, to survey the existing research on mesophase pitch. I found some papers and informed myself about mesophase pitch. After I returned to Korea, Prof. Rhee suggested that we work together in the field of carbon materials. I hesitated to give him a definite answer. At that time, Korea was an under-developed country and our department received grant-type aid from Germany. The German-side supervisor of the aid was Professor Onken (Dortmund University, later president of the European Chemical Engineering Society), who suggested to me an international co-work project on fermentation. At the same time, Prof. Fitzer came to Korea and asked me to help Prof. Rhee in the development of carbon fiber in Korea. To this end, I studied the preparation of mesophase pitch. It was very interesting for me to observe liquid crystals in mesophase pitch with hot-stage and monitor. I and Prof. Rhee participated in the World Congress in Chemical Engineering in Tokyo (1985) to present the results of the mesophase pitch work [Photo 1]. During that time, I also got interested in the development and characterization of ACF (activated carbon fibers). However, in the beginning, I passed too much steam through the furnace to the chopped-pitch carbon fibers. SEM photos showed that the graphenes were lifted off the carbon fibers like onion layers [