Doosan Yonkang Foundation presents 2026 environmental research awards

The Doosan Yonkang Foundation held the 2026 Doosan Yonkang Environmental Academic Award ceremony Wednesday at the Korean Society of Environmental Engineers conference at Jeju Shinhwa World, the foundation announced Thursday.

At the ceremony, the foundation presented Jang Am, a professor at Sungkyunkwan University, and Kim Hyung-il, an associate professor at Yonsei University, with trophies and prize money of 30 million won ($22,400) and 10 million won, respectively.

Jang was recognized for research using a liquid-supported membrane contact process to selectively recover phenolic compounds from coal chemical wastewater, clarifying the mass-transfer characteristics and recovery mechanisms involved. The work demonstrated the potential to recycle hazardous substances in wastewater as industrial raw materials and proposed a technical framework linking wastewater treatment with resource recovery.

Kim developed a photocatalytic system that converts waste plastics into high-value compounds based on their concentration and recoverability, and can also fully decompose plastic-derived pollutants in water.

The Doosan Yonkang Environmental Academic Award was established in 2019 as an extension of the foundation's environmental safety research support program, which it had run for 25 years from 1993 to 2017.