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■ Seon Yang-guk/Battery Engineer The 45th protagonist! Dr. Seon Yang-guk! In 2019, the Nobel Committee awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to three scientists who developed lithium-ion batteries, saying that it was a revolution for humanity and opened a new era. Today, with the advancement of battery performance, electric vehicles are appearing one by one to replace internal combustion engine vehicles, and it is no exaggeration to say that the world is in a battery war to develop batteries that last longer and farther. However, battery development is not easy. Lithium-ion batteries are the best batteries among existing energy storage systems with a wide operating voltage and high energy density, but they have fatal flaws such as fire or explosion. Many scientists have studied for a long time to overcome this, but there is still no replacement battery. To overcome this, Dr. Seon Yang-guk has been working hard to develop anode materials for batteries for a long time. Dr. Seon discovered that cracks form in the cathode material as the battery is used, causing electrolytes to penetrate through the gaps, which deteriorates the stability and performance of the battery, and developed a new material to overcome this. The 'concentration gradient' cathode material he developed, as its name suggests, changes the overall concentration from the surface to the center, so only the advantages of each composition are expressed, and it is a technology that simultaneously captures stability and capacity. This structure, which has been developed up to the fourth generation, was transferred to a company, and since 2018, there have been no explosions or fires while it has been used in electric vehicles, verifying the safety of the battery. Recently, Dr. Seon Yang-guk is not only researching and finding new materials, but is also spurring the development of next-generation batteries to contribute to the battery industry in Korea. Dr. Seon Yang-guk, who began battery research since the barren times with the pioneering vision of a scientist, is a story about his long-term, original research to invent a safe and high-performance battery. Bravo K-SCIENTIST, which cheers on the research and lives of scientists leading science in Korea [Original YTN Science Article] https://science.ytn.co.kr/program/pro...