Dankook University Professor Kim Gayoung's Team Develops High-Efficiency Water Purification Technology

Purification Without Electricity
Achieves Eight Times the Efficiency of Conventional Methods

Dankook University announced on the 19th that a research team led by Professor Kim Gayoung from the Department of Polymer System Engineering, in collaboration with Professor Lee Junseok's team from Hanyang University, has developed a new high-efficiency water purification technology.

The research team developed a three-phase interface photocatalytic sterilization system that decomposes contaminants in water using light.

Conventional photocatalytic technology only reacts at the interface where water and solids meet, resulting in insufficient oxygen supply and thus slow purification speed and low efficiency.

The team designed a pine needle-shaped nanostructure (CO-FPN) that allows air to flow freely, achieving up to eight times higher purification efficiency compared to existing methods.

Notably, the system can operate solely on sunlight without external power, making it highly applicable in underdeveloped countries with limited electricity.

The results of this research were published in the world-renowned nanotechnology journal 'Small' (December issue, last year).

Professor Kim stated, "We will strive to ensure this technology can be utilized in more regions through practical application research."

This research was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.