Principal Research Scientist, Materials Architecturing Research Center, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Korea

Biography: JDr. Sang Hoon Kim is a Principal Research Scientist at Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul, Korea. Before joining KIST in 2011, he worked as Advisory Engineer/Scientist at Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (HGST), San Jose, California, USA. Dr. Kim earned his doctoral degree in Physics from Humboldt Univ. of Berlin in Germany in 2003 and his thesis was on studying elementary steps of chemical interactions on model catalysis surfaces with Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM). He earned his M.Sc and B.Sc degree in Physics from Seoul National University in Korea. Dr. Kim’s research interest and experience is nanomaterials for catalysis and electrodes, catalyst materials for environment and energy, interface physics/chemistry, and magnetic recording.

Speech Title: Arc plasma generated silver nanoparticles for membrane antifouling
Aims: The aim of this study was to apply the arc plasma deposition (APD) technique to enhancing the antifouling of polymer membranes by depositing Ag nanoparticles on membranes.

Methods: This technique directly evaporates solid metal target into highly ionized plasma pulse in vacuum environment. The plasma pulse includes ample amount of nanoparticles with short pulse duration (< 1 ms). Originally, this technique was applied for preparation of multilayers of nm thick layers for surface protection. In APD, deposited amount of nanoparticles can be easily and accurately controlled. Therefore, this technique can be applied for preparation of ample amount of individual nanoparticles on suitable catalyst support materials such as alumina and titania by controlling the number of plasma pulses before forming a complete layer.

Results: We applied APD technique to incorporate Ag nanoparticles on polymer membranes used for water purification. Different from metal oxide support, deposition of Ag nanoparticles on the polymer membrane had to be gentle by controlling deposition parameters in order not to destroy the membrane. Ag deposited membranes showed superior antifouling effects while purifying water.

Conclusions: APD is a simple and dry process to deposit metallic nanoparticles without using complicated wet-chemical processes such as washcoating and this technique was successfully applied to polymer membranes to enhance antifouling effects.