Professor Baek Muhyun, First Recipient of the 'Hyunwoo KAIST Academic Award'

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) announced on the 24th that Professor Baek Moo-hyun of the Department of Chemistry has been selected as the recipient of the 'Hyunwoo KAIST Academic Award.' The award ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. on the 25th at the Jeong Geun-mo Hall in the KAIST Academic and Cultural Center.

The 'Hyunwoo KAIST Academic Award,' established this year for the first time, was created through a donation by Kwak Soo-il, Chairman of the Hyunwoo Cultural Foundation, to annually honor scholars who have made outstanding academic achievements at KAIST. KAIST plans to select and award one faculty member each year who has achieved excellent academic accomplishments representing KAIST, following evaluations by the Hyunwoo Foundation selection committee and the KAIST Faculty Award Recommendation Committee.

Professor Baek, selected as this year’s awardee, was recognized for discovering a groundbreaking new technology in 2020 that controls chemical reactions, which he named the 'electrical induction effect,' and publishing it in the world’s top academic journal, Science. Previously, the only known method to alter molecular properties was by introducing functional groups to impart an 'inductive effect' to molecules.

However, Professor Baek discovered that by covalently bonding molecules to electrodes and applying voltage, the same inductive effect can be achieved using electrodes instead of functional groups. This technology is regarded as a decisive innovation that can transform chemical research. When the 'electrical induction effect' is expanded to large-scale chemical synthesis, the complex processes of preparing various functionalized molecules or catalysts in many chemical reactions can be eliminated.

Professor Baek was already awarded the POSCO Cheongam Prize in 2021 for the same achievement. Over the past year, he published a total of 32 papers in chemistry journals including Angewandte Chemie.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.