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Ah-Hyung Alissa Park is a chemical engineer whose research concerns carbon capture and storage, together with carbon dioxide utilization and the development of materials and processes for more sustainable energy systems. Her UCLA profile describes nanohybrid materials for carbon dioxide capture and conversion, together with work on chemistry of carbonates, recovery of critical minerals and rare-earth elements.^[ref]

The scientific connection is between material structure and a chemical process: the way a material binds or reacts with carbon dioxide determines how it can be separated, transformed or stored. Evaluating such a process also requires tracking material flows and energy use through the larger system. This links surface chemistry, chemical reaction engineering and the assessment of alternative process designs rather than treating capture alone as the complete objective.^[ref]

Chemical reaction engineering designs and analyses reactors by combining chemical kinetics with mass balance, energy balance and transport. A desired molecular reaction must be achieved in a vessel where mixing, temperature and residence time affect conversion.

For a steady well-mixed flow reactor with constant volume $V$, volumetric flow $Q$ and a first-order consumption rate $kC$, the species balance is $0=Q{C}_{\mathrm{in}}-QC-kVC$. Hence $C/C_{\mathrm{in}}=1/(1+kV/Q)$. This derivation assumes uniform concentration, equal inlet/outlet volumetric flow and constant rate coefficient. An ideal plug flow reactor instead gives $C_{\mathrm{out}}/C_{\mathrm{in}}=e^{-kV/Q}$. Different flow histories can thus yield different conversion at the same mean residence time.