KAIST CBE Special Seminar

- Speaker: Prof. Joon Ha Kim

School of Environmental Sciences and Engineering

Gwangju Institute of Science & Technology (GIST)

- Title: What is ‘Environmental Systems Engineering’?

- Schedule: Monday, March 16, 2015 / 16:00-17:00

- Place: #1101 @ W1-3 Bldg.

- Contact: Serim Kim (X3902)

Abstract:

“Environmental Systems Engineering” can be defined as the scientific study that derives solutions to the problems of all concerned in Environmental Systems through converging “Environmental Engineering” and “Systems Engineering”. Environmental systems are, in fact, classified as Closed and Open systems. Examples of Closed Systems can include standard water treatment processes, forward osmosis (FO) system, reverse osmosis (RO) system, membrane distillation system, osmotic power systems, etc., where professional engineer controls system parameters accurately to optimize the end product quality. On the other hand, there are some restrictions to the accuracy of monitoring and/or measurement in Open Systems (e.g., streams/rivers, lakes/reservoirs, watersheds/basins, estuaries/beaches), because individual systems include different complex processes and their boundaries are so flexible (i.e., differ from site to site). This presentation will explain how “Environmental Systems Engineering” can be applied to the Close/Open systems and show how we can construct innovative engineering solutions from the real-world problems. In particular, this presentation introduces engineering applications to various systems that spatially range from molecular scale of 10^-9m to grand scale of 10⁺⁹m and temporally range from 10^-9s(nano-second) to 10⁺⁹s(100years). Finally, future and ongoing works that Environmental Systems Engineering can be applied, will be touched upon at the end of this presentation.