Professor Seunghoon Lee of Dong-A University Publishes Paper in 'Angewandte Chemie International Edition'

Joint Research with Ohio University, USA and Munich University, Germany

Proposing Chiral Catalysts and Molecular Separation Technologies to Improve Efficiency and Economic Feasibility

Dong-A University (President Lee Hae-woo) announced that Professor Lee Seung-hoon from the Department of Chemistry published a paper in the prestigious journal ‘Angewandte Chemie International Edition,’ which ranks in the top 5% in the field of chemistry.

Professor Lee Seung-hoon, Department of Chemistry, Dong-A University.

Professor Lee conducted the research under the Ministry of Science and ICT (Korea Research Foundation) ‘Outstanding Early-Career Researcher Support Project’ and published a paper titled “Unraveling the Chirality Transfer from Circularly Polarized Light to Single Plasmonic Nanoparticles.”

This study attracted attention as it was carried out through international collaborative research exchanges with Professor Alexander O Govorov from Ohio University, USA, PhD candidate Chenghao Fan from the University of Munich, Germany, and Professor Emiliano Cort?s and his research team.

The research team opened a new horizon in the study of ‘Chirality Transfer’ and provided a new approach to exploring the asymmetry of matter.

Chirality transfer refers to the phenomenon where chirality is transmitted from one system to another. ‘Chirality’ is an intrinsic property of a material’s structure that cannot be superimposed on its mirror image spatially. For example, the left and right hands look the same but cannot be perfectly superimposed as mirror images.

Research on elucidating chirality transfer is receiving great attention in the fields of chemistry, biology, medicine, and pharmacy because it can regulate the origin of life exploration as well as specific functional actions within living organisms.

In particular, ‘Chiral Plasmonic Nanoparticles’ enable much more effective detection and manipulation of chirality through interactions between light and matter.

In this study, the mechanism of chirality transfer via light was elucidated, and using this, the team succeeded in synthesizing ‘Chiral Plasmonic Gold Nanoparticles.’

Previously, the synthesis of chiral plasmonic gold nanoparticles was conducted through chirality transfer using chiral molecules. In contrast, this study realized chiral plasmonic nanoparticles by utilizing circularly polarized light without chiral molecules and clarified the synthesis mechanism principle.

The chirality of nanoparticles revealed in this study is expected to provide a new approach to chiral catalysts and molecular separation technologies in the chemical industry, improving efficiency and economic feasibility.

Additionally, chiral plasmonic nanoparticles can capture subtle optical changes occurring when detecting specific molecules, enabling the development of extremely sensitive sensors, which could play an important role in disease diagnosis and environmental monitoring.

Professor Lee said, “This research is significant in that it presented a blueprint for realizing chiral plasmonic nanoparticles based on the interaction between light and nanoparticles,” adding, “It is expected to be a core technology for applications in drugs, biosensing, nanotechnology, and the development of chiral photochemical catalysts that respond to specific chiral reactions.”