Prof. Young Kwan Lee (Department of Chemical Engineering)

 Receives ‘Toray Polymer Award’ from the Polymer Society of Korea

Prof. Young Kwan Lee (Department of Chemical Engineering) received Toray Polymer Award at the 93^rd Polymer Society of Korea Autumn Regular Conference, held in Daegu on October 6. 

Prof. Lee was appointed to the Department of Chemical Engineering in 1993 and researched about manufacturing and application of functional polymer materials, publishing about 300 SCI academic papers, and 50 domestic/international patent registrations. He also accomplished 7 cases of technology transfer and produced 65 Master’s and 15 Doctor’s degrees. At SKKU, he oversaw various tasks such as Industrial Cooperation Group Leader, Head of SKKU Institute of Convergence, and Director for Planning and Coordination. For the Polymer Society of Korea, he also was responsible for: Edition Staff of the Korean/English Journal, Counselor, Financial Director. He has contributed to actual industrialization by having joint research with multiple companies inside/outside the country such as Japan Kaneka, Germany BASF, Samsung (Electricity & Electronics, Advanced Institute of Technology), Soulbrain Co., Ltd, Dongsung Corp., LMS, etc.

Prof. Lee is conducting research on various application fields of polymers. He published about 40 papers of investigation results that employ polymer drivers that use conducting polymer and dielectric elastomer in material design and devices on ‘Sensor & Actuator’ (IF 9.221, Top 4.55%). He also developed an electrochemical biosensor that can detect the infinitesimal amount of heavy metal, glucose, endotoxin, and amyloid-β, etc. by producing nanostructures composed of conducting polymers and metals which were published in about 40 papers on Biosensor & Bioelectronics (IF 12.545, Top 2.87%). In addition, 40 research papers related to the development of super-capacitors and new-generation secondary batteries using various structures of functional polymers and metallic oxides were conducted and published on Advanced Materials (IF 32.086, Top 2.15%), Advanced Energy Materials (IF 29.698, Top 2.46%), Advanced Functional Materials (IF 19.924, Top 4.66%), Chemical Engineering Journal (IF 16.744, Top 2.46%).

Due to his active research activities, Prof. Lee has published about 80 thesis papers in the recent decade and received the best award in 2022 patent part for having a tactical industrial project with Samsung Electronics under the title of ‘High-Sensitivity Photoresist Development for EUVs’.