Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Education:
Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, University of Minnesota, 1998
B.S., M.S., Chemical Technology, Seoul National University, 1990, 1992

Career Highlights:
Upon earning his Ph.D. with Tim Lodge at the University of Minnesota , Dr. Ryu served as a postdoctoral researcher with Ed Kramer and Glenn Fredrickson at the University of California , Santa Barbara for nearly two years.  He joined Rensselaer in November, 2000 as an assistant professor of chemistry, and has won the NSF CAREER Award (2005), Mettler-Toledo Thermal Analysis Education Grant (2001), the Arthur K. Doolittle Award from the American Chemical Society Division of Polymeric Materials Science and Engineering (1998), and Korea Foundation for Advanced Studies Scholarship (1993 – 1998).

Research Areas:
Macromolecular Separation and Adsorption
Our group is studying macromolecular separation and adsorption using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). We study polymer separation by HPLC and explore its unique applications for rigorous analysis and purification of polymers, block copolymers and functional oligomers. We also pursue a molecular level understanding of polymer/copolymer adsorption in confined geometries in order to gain insights on macromolecular interactions during HPLC. We are mainly interested in separating (co)polymers and oligomers that are synthetically very challenging to obtain as pure samples and/or can have technological implications in nanoscale self-assembly, electro-optical applications, and carbon nanotube fabrication.

Block Copolymer Self-Assembly in Solution and Thin Films
We are interested in developing a polymer research program in structure-property relationships of multiphase polymer systems, where their performance and applications are closely related to the mesoscopic morphologies. The central theme of my research effort will be the design, synthesis, and characterization of model polymers and the study of their structure-property relationships as in bulk and thin films. We will combine the polymer separation technique using HPLC to obtain pure block copolymers and study their self-assembly in solution and thin films. The ultimate aim will be to guide the rational design of polymeric materials, thus gaining a fundamental understanding in the correlation between properties and structures in multiphase polymers.

Polymer-Carbon Nanotube Hybrid Materials
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have many desirable characteristics such as high mechanical strengths and high conductivity. We developed novel polymer-carbon nanotubes hybrid materials by grafting polymer chains to the nanotubes using anionic polymerization techniques. Possible applications of the hybrid materials include structural reinforcements in composite materials, because the grafted polymer chains improve the adhesion between stiff nanotubes and polymer matrix.

Selected Publications: