Seunghoon Lee

Bio

Seunghoon Lee is a postdoctoral research associate in the Chemical Science Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. In 2019, He has completed his Ph.D. in Physics at Pukyong National University in South Korea. He has worked on a fundamental understanding about solar-to-electrical/chemical energy conversion in terms of charge transfer in metal nanoparticle-attached semiconductor nanowire system. Specifically, he focused on measuring surface potential to study charge-transfer using atomic force microscopy under light illumination and used two computational simulation tools (COMSOL for electrical properties and Lumerical for optical properties calculations). Beside with this mechanism study, he has studied thermo-electric, magneto-optical interaction, and mechano-chemical effects using various characterization tools.

After his Ph.D., Hoon wanted to expand and apply his knowledge to more practical applications beyond mechanism, so he began to focus on electrochemical CO₂ capture and conversion since CO₂ is the primary cause of global warming. Hoon’s research was initially funded by Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE), and he has worked at Duke University for about 2.5 years (2020-2022). The main work was to develop and optimize a prototype reactor to produce more hydrocarbon products. Hoon has found that product selectivity shifts toward C₁ or C₂ products depending on local conditions around a catalyst.

The electrochemical CO₂ reduction reaction is a promising technology that can produce chemicals and liquid fuels, which can replace fossil fuels. However, an overall system including catalyst is unstable, and this instability is one of the biggest obstacles for commercializing this technology. Hoon’s current interest as a short-term goal is to improve the stability of a catalyst so that we can produce final products consistently. As his long-term goal, Hoon would like to develop a “solar-driven CO₂ recycling technology”.

Untill now, he is the first author of 15 publications (ex: Nano Energy, Nano Letters, JACS, ACS Nano, CM, JMCA… etc) with a total of 25 publications, has two patents, has won three awards, and has had more than 10 presentations in the international conferences.

Specialized Equipment

Atomic Force Microscopy

Kelvin Probe Force Microscopy

Scanning Electron Microscopy with EDS

Raman spectroscopy

COMSOL Simulation

Lumerical Simulation

Potentiostat

Mass spectrometer

Gas chromatography

LabView

Source-Measure unit