‘Hercules Artificial Muscle’ Selected as One of the World’s Top 10 Promising Technologies in Chemistry and Materials Fields

‘Hercules Artificial Muscle’ developed by domestic researchers has been included in the world’s top 10 promising technologies in the field of chemistry and materials.

KAIST announced on the 5th that the Hercules artificial muscle technology developed in 2022 by Professor Sangwook Kim’s research team in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering was selected as one of the ‘Top 10 Promising Technologies of 2023’ by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC), the world’s largest academic organization in the field of chemistry and materials.

Card news on the 'Hercules Artificial Muscle' technology developed by Professor Kim Sang-wook's research team. Provided by KAIST

IUPAC is an organization established in 1919 by researchers from various countries around the world in the field of chemistry and materials for the purpose of international cooperation and information exchange. Since 2019, it has selected the top 10 promising technologies annually to propose solutions to the multifaceted crises facing humanity.

KAIST explained that the selection of the Hercules artificial muscle technology as one of the top 10 promising technologies is a recognition of its scientific and technological importance for the sustainability of society.

The Hercules artificial muscle technology was also named one of the ‘Top 10 Nanotechnologies of 2023’ awarded by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Nano Technology Research Association in Korea. Additionally, it was selected as one of the top 100 outstanding national research and development achievements in the mechanical and materials sector by the Ministry of Science and ICT last year. This shows that the importance of this technology has already been recognized domestically.

Previously, Professor Sangwook Kim’s research team succeeded in developing artificial muscle technology that mimics the structure of human muscles while possessing high mechanical properties and actuation performance.

They developed the world’s first technology enabling reversible muscle movement using a composite material combining graphene and liquid crystal fibers, which simultaneously exhibits various mechanical properties of muscle movement that surpass those of human muscles.

This fiber-type artificial muscle shows behavior very similar to human muscles, attracting attention for its potential applications in wearable physical assistive devices for the elderly and disabled, as well as biomimetic robots capable of maintaining mobility in extreme environments such as space, deep sea, and disaster zones.

The research results were also published as a cover paper in the world-renowned scientific journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Professor Sangwook Kim said, “The selection of artificial muscle technology as one of IUPAC’s ‘Top 10 Promising Technologies’ and Korea’s ‘Top 10 Nanotechnologies’ is an external recognition of the importance and technological significance of artificial muscle technology. We expect that artificial muscle technology will play a significant role in scientific and technological fields emerging in future societies, such as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”

Meanwhile, besides artificial muscle technology, IUPAC’s ‘Top 10 Promising Technologies of 2023’ also includes biological recycling of PET plastics, seawater CO2 removal, polymer degradation reactions, GPT models for chemistry, photocatalytic hydrogen, wearable sensors, low-sugar vaccines, bacterial therapeutics, and synthetic electrochemistry.

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