Hoon Choi is a staff scientist in the Renewable Resources and Enabling Sciences Center at NREL. His main research interests are the development of separation and purification processes for renewable specialty and commodity chemicals.

Research Interests

Separation and purification process development for renewable chemicals and critical minerals

Counter-current chromatography process development for biorefineries

Adsorption, chromatography, and simulated moving bed process modeling and optimization

Process intensification for downstream processes

Novel adsorbents and green chemistry for efficient and economical separation processes

Affiliated Research Programs

Bioprocessing Separations Consortium

Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment (BOTTLE™) Consortium

U.S. Department of Energy Advanced Manufacturing Office Critical Materials Project

Laboratory Directed Research and Development Project

Areas of Expertise

Downstream process design for recovering bio-based chemicals

Counter-current chromatography process optimization

Adsorption process modeling and simulation

Novel adsorbent design

Education

Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, Purdue University

M.S., Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Yonsei University

B.S., Chemical Engineering, Yonsei University

Featured Work

The Cell Utilized Partitioning Model as a Predictive Tool for Optimizing Counter-Current Chromatography Processes, Separation and Purification Technology (2022)

Separation of Bio-Based Glucaric Acid via Antisolvent Crystallization and Azeotropic Drying, Green Chemistry (2022)

Constant-Pattern Design Method for the Separation of Three Rare Earth Elements Using Ligand-Assisted Displacement Chromatography, Journal of Chromatography A (2018)

Patents

Process for the Recovery of Monopotassium Glucarate and Glucaric Acid, U.S. Patent Application No. 63/270,947 (Pending)

Preparation of Rare Earth Metals and Other Chemicals From Industrial Waste Coal Ash, U.S. Patent No. 20190153562A1 (2022)

Methods for Designing an Efficient Preparative Chromatographic Separation Process, WO Patent No. 2019084404 (2018)

Awards and Honors

NREL Director’s Award (2021)