Professor Hyeon Taeg-hwan's team(Dept. of Chemical Engineering) is selling its nano-particle production technology to Hanwha Chemical for 4.3 billion won. Hyeon will sign a contract with Hanwha to transfer its know-how and grant an exclusive license to commercialize it.

Hyeon's research, first published in 2004 on Nature Materials magazine, describes a method for the large-scale synthesis of dispersed nano-size particles of metals via a simple and inexpensive route. Such microscopic particles of regular density can be adopted in making high-resolution magnetic films used in medical equipment and electronic storage devices, semiconductor manufacturing equipment and next-generation electronic display devices.

``The market for the nano-particles is now beginning to form,'' Hyeon said. ``It will take around five years for the research to be fully commercialized, and Hanwha is investing in this field now because it will be too late to do it five years later.''

Hyeon said that Hanwha will use its corporate resources in implementing and developing the school's achievements into mass production. So far, Hyeon's laboratory can only produce 40 grams of nano-particles at a time but Hanwha will be able to harvest several kilograms.

A nano particle generally refers to materials of molecular scale, normally 1 to 100 of 1 billionth meter. Since it is so small, it is critical to maintain the density of the microscopic particles within certain levels when dispersing it on base materials such as magnetic films.

As a result of the technology transfer, the mono-dispersed nano-particles will be produced on a large scale by a Korean firm and will be applied to a various range of industries. It will bring massive economic profit to Korea and it will also put the country in the lead of the nano-technology sector.

Hyeon is one of the world's leading researchers in the nano-particle field. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Seoul National University and obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1996. Since he joined the faculty of the School of Chemical and Biological Engineering of Seoul National University in 1997, he has focused on the synthesis of uniform-sized nano-particles.

He published more than 90 papers in prominent international journals, and is currently the director of National Creative Research Initiative Center for Oxide Nanocrystalline Materials supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology.

January 11, 2008
SNU PR Officce