Argonne, Korea's KATECH Partner on Green Technologies

From left to right: Ki-Sub Lee, President, KATECH; Youn Ho Lee, Korea Ministry of Knowledge Economy Minister; Steven Chu, US Secretary of Energy; Eric Isaacs, Director, Argonne.

From left to right: Sung-Jin Choi, Director, Vehicle Platform Research Center, KATECH; Kyeong Lee, Mechanical Engineer, Argonne TTRDC; Eric Isaacs, Director, Argonne; Larry Johnson, Director, Argonne TTRDC; Ki-Sub Lee, President, KATECH; Chun-Boom Lee, Director, Environmental System R&D Center, KATECH; Baek-Haeng Lee, Director, Electron System R&D Center, KATECH.

Argonne’s Transportation Technology R&D Center (TTRDC) now has another international partner in its efforts to take automotive technologies to new heights. On June 16, 2009, Argonne entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Korea Automotive Technology Institute (KATECH), with the U.S. Department of Energy Secretary and the Korea Ministry of Knowledge Economy Minister in attendance.

The goal of this agreement is to accelerate the development and commercialization of a variety of green car technologies. This collaboration will focus on three key areas of research:

• Clean diesel combustion and emissions control
• Renewable bio-fuels testing and protocol development
• Electric-drive vehicle benchmarking and battery systems testing

“Both parties will be doing research in parallel and sharing results,” said Kyeong Lee, a principal mechanical engineer in Argonne’s TTRDC.  “This will increase our knowledge base and help speed along the R&D process.”

KATECH is the transportation research and development counterpart of Argonne’s TTRDC.  The two organizations will team up by initiating joint research projects, information exchanges of publicly available research data, collaborative visits, and staff exchanges.

“Both the U.S. and South Korea share a common problem – heavy dependence on foreign oil,” added Larry Johnson, TTRDC Director.  “Technology transfer of our results will help the auto industries in both countries improve the energy efficiency of their vehicles. 

Following the MOU signing in Washington, DC, the president of KATECH and several staff visited Argonne’s transportation facilities on June 17, 2009 as both teams continued discussions on the initial projects.

Both Argonne and KATECH bring unique resources and expertise to the table. For example, KATECH’s facilities will help increase Argonne’s testing capabilities. These facilities include:

• Heavy-duty engine dynamometers with an integrated hardware-in-the-loop system
• Nano-particle measurement systems
• Medium-duty four-wheel independent chassis dynamometer

This is not the first MOU for Argonne’s TTRDC. In 2004, the lab signed an MOU with the China Automotive Technology and Research Center (CATARC) to help foster the commercialization of energy-efficient vehicle technologies and clean transportation fuels in China. While the MOU with China is more of an analysis and assessment collaboration, the KATECH MOU will focus on the research and development of new transportation technologies.

June 2009