Designing the surface
Catalyst active sites and atomic-layer coatings, built for activity with less metal.
Chan Kim
Chemical Engineer — Surface Reactions
Expert in catalyst design, atomic layer deposition and in-situ surface spectroscopy — and in building the reactors and software that run them.
PhD candidate, Chemical & Biological Engineering · Seoul National University × KIST · expected Feb 2028 · Open to R&D roles in industry and research institutes
Research theme
Engineering reactions at surfaces
Catalysis and thin-film growth both begin where molecules meet a solid surface — and the sites they meet decide what forms. I design those surfaces, watch them work under real conditions, and scale them into reactors and processes.
Watching the surface work
In-situ and operando analysis that shows what a surface actually does under reaction.
From surface to system
Reactors, equipment software and cost models that take a surface reaction to a working system.
Underneath it all: eleven self-built research tools — the literature pipeline won an Excellence Award at KIST AIX 2026.
Research
Photothermal NH3 Decomposition
Catalyst, light-driven reactor and automated data pipeline — all developed in-house.
Ongoing
Powder Atomic Layer Deposition
Powder ALD for ammonia-decomposition catalysts — less metal, tuned nanostructure.
Ongoing
High-Pressure Hydrogen from Sodium Borohydride
500-bar-class hydrogen with no compressor · demonstrated at ADEX 2025
Published · CEJ 2025, first author
Formic Acid Dehydrogenation
Operando pH tracking found the acid–formate ratio that maximizes H2 output
Published · ACS Sus. Chem. Eng. 2022, co-first author
Publications
3 first-author · 9 co-author- 2026Dependence of catalytic properties of strongly supported platinum clusters with atom countsScienceCo-author
How the catalytic behavior of supported platinum clusters changes atom by atom.
- 2026Selective CO-to-hydrocarbon conversion in formic acid–promoted borohydride hydrolysis for PEMFC-grade hydrogen productionInternational Journal of Hydrogen EnergyCo-first author
Trace CO in the hydrolysis stream is converted into condensable hydrocarbons over Ru/TiO2/Al2O3 — from ~10,000 ppm to under 1 ppm — and the hydrolysis exotherm alone keeps the purifier running.
- 2025High-Pressure, Grid-Independent Hydrogen Generation via Chemical Hydride Hydrolysis: Demonstration and Deployment StrategiesChemical Engineering JournalFirst author
From lab bench to a working high-pressure, grid-independent hydrogen generator.
- 2025Promoter-guided reaction intermediate dynamics enhance perhydro-benzyltoluene dehydrogenationACS CatalysisCo-author
How promoter atoms steer reaction intermediates in LOHC dehydrogenation over Pt.
AI-powered research tools
LLM pipelines and MCP servers that read, file and query the literature — H2-bench & H2-MCP are used by around 30 researchers at KIST. Excellence Award, KIST AIX 2026.
Equipment control software for the powder ALD system, built in about 19 hours with an AI coding agent — replacing the vendor’s program.
- get-ASAPLiterature radar tracking 85+ journals across 7 publishers, from Gmail alert to public dashboard.Live site: the public dashboard — keyword trends, journal breakdowns, searchable archive.Try get-ASAPView repo
- paper-autodownLLM triage for new papers — the relevant ones download automatically and file straight into Zotero.Private repository
- paper-organizerDistills the literature into a human-ratified argument graph — claims, evidence, attacks.Live site: the public argument map of the ongoing plasmonics study.See the argument mapPrivate repository
- H2-bench & H2-MCPA cited benchmark of the hydrogen-carrier literature — a website to browse, an MCP server to query, both deployed in-house at KIST’s Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Research Center.Private repository
Hi there
I’m a PhD candidate in chemical engineering at Seoul National University and KIST, working on surface reactions — catalysts, atomic-layer coatings and in-situ analysis — and the software that runs the research.
PhD expected February 2028 · open to R&D roles in industry and research institutes.
[email protected] · [email protected] · Google Scholar
Core Skills
Surface analysis (in-situ DRIFTS, XPS) · ALD / thin-film deposition · Catalyst synthesis & characterization · Vacuum & gas-delivery systems · Reactor design & operation · Equipment control software · GC · Python lab automation · TEA / LCOH
All skills →Experience & Education
- 2024 – nowPhD Candidate (expected Feb 2028) · School of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Seoul National University (Advisor: Prof. Jungwon Park) × KIST (Advisor: Dr. Yongmin Kim)
- 2021 – nowIndustry R&D projects · Hyundai Motor Company, then the Hyundai Rotem–led program — on-board hydrogen generation and high-pressure supply from sodium borohydride; publicly demonstrated at ADEX 2025
- 2023 – 2024Research Intern · KIST Hydrogen & Fuel Cell Research Center
- 2021 – 2023M.S., KHU-KIST Convergence Science & Technology · Kyung Hee University
- 2015 – 2021B.S., Chemistry · Kyung Hee University (Seoul)
12 publications (3 first-author) · 1 patent application · 11 research tools · 4 awards
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