Professor Hyeontae Hwan of Seoul National University Selected as a 'Strong Nobel Prize Candidate'

Hyuntaek Hwan, Distinguished Professor, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Seoul National University

[Asia Economy Reporter Junho Hwang] Professor Taek-Hwan Hyun, Chair Professor of the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Seoul National University, has been listed among the predicted Nobel Prize winners this year.

Information analysis service company Clarivate Analytics announced the list of "2020 Highly Cited Researchers" expected to win the Nobel Prize on the 23rd. This year's list of outstanding researchers includes 24 researchers from six countries. Among researchers affiliated with Korean institutions, Professor Taek-Hwan Hyun was the only one to be named.

Professor Hyun is a distinguished scholar who has been researching the field of nanoscience for over 20 years. His inclusion in this list was largely based on his achievement related to "the development of a standard synthesis method for uniformly synthesizing nanoparticles."

Professor Hyun devised a completely new approach to produce uniform nanoparticles of desired sizes. He succeeded in synthesizing uniform nanoparticles through a heat-up process, which involves gradually heating at room temperature. This study, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS) in 2001, has been cited 1,660 times to date. Previously, when synthesizing nanomaterials, particle sizes varied, requiring selection of particles of the needed size. This research was published in the American Chemical Society journal in 2001 and has been cited 1,660 times so far.

He also developed foundational technology for the industrial application of the heat-up process. He developed a method for mass synthesis of uniform nanoparticles and published it in Nature Materials in December 2004 (cited 3,000 times). The heat-up process is now widely used as the standard nanoparticle synthesis method not only in laboratories worldwide but also in chemical factories. Papers cited over 1,000 times in the field of chemistry account for only about 0.025% of all papers.

Professor Hyun stated, "When I was appointed as a professor at Seoul National University, I decided to challenge a new field different from the one I researched during my doctoral studies in the U.S., and I entered the emerging field of nanoscience at that time. Thanks to my students, fellow scientists, and the circumstances that allowed me to steadily research one field over a long period, I was able to receive this honor."

Clarivate Analytics has been announcing the "list of scientists highly likely to win the Nobel Prize" annually since 2002. So far, 54 individuals on the list have actually won the Nobel Prize. Among Koreans, Professor Yong-Kee Yoo of KAIST was the first to be named on the list in 2014, and in 2017, Professor Nam-Gyu Park of Sungkyunkwan University was selected.

Meanwhile, the Nobel Foundation in Sweden will announce this year’s Nobel Prizes from November 5 to 12. Starting with the Physiology or Medicine Prize on the 5th, followed by the Physics Prize on the 6th, Chemistry Prize on the 7th, Literature Prize on the 8th, Peace Prize on the 9th, and the Economics Prize on the 12th.

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