Korea-Made Artificial Muscle Selected as One of the World's Top 10 Technologies

International Chemistry Union Recognizes Excellence of Artificial Muscles Developed by KAIST
Graphene-Liquid Crystal Composite Material 17 Times Stronger Than Human Muscle
Expected Applications in Wearable Body Assist Devices and Soft Robots

KAIST (President Kwang Hyung Lee) announced on the 5th that the Hercules artificial muscle technology developed in 2022 by the research team of Professor Sangwook Kim from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering has been selected as one of the ‘Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2023’ by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the world's largest academic institution in the fields of chemistry and materials.

According to KAIST, in addition to Professor Kim’s artificial muscle technology, the technologies selected as the Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2023 by IUPAC include biologically recyclable PET plastics, seawater CO2 removal, polymer degradation reactions, GPT models for chemistry, photocatalytic hydrogen, wearable sensors, low-sugar vaccines, bacterial therapeutics, and synthetic electrochemistry.

The Hercules artificial muscle was also selected as one of the Top 10 Nanotechnologies of 2023 awarded by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Nano Technology Research Council, as well as one of the Top 100 National R&D Achievements in the Mechanical and Materials sector of 2023 by the Ministry of Science and ICT.

The concept of artificial muscles first began with experiments by 17th-century British scientist Robert Hooke, but there remained the challenge of how to harmonize synthetic artificial muscles with the biological tissues of living organisms.

Professor Sangwook Kim’s research team succeeded for the first time in the world in developing artificial muscle technology that mimics human muscle structure while possessing high mechanical properties and actuation performance through a composite material combining graphene and liquid crystal fibers.

This fiber-type artificial muscle behaves very similarly to human muscles and can be applied to wearable physical assistive devices for the elderly or disabled, as well as biomimetic robots that maintain mobility in extreme environments such as space, deep sea, and disaster zones.

The research results were published as a cover paper in the world-renowned scientific journal Nature Nanotechnology (IF: 40.5).

Professor Sangwook Kim said, “Our artificial muscle technology being selected as one of the IUPAC Top 10 Emerging Technologies recognized by scientists worldwide and as one of the Top 10 Nanotechnologies domestically is an external acknowledgment of the importance and significance of artificial muscle technology. We expect it to play a major role in future scientific and technological fields emerging in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

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