POSTECH Professor Tae-Woo Lee’s (MSE) research team developed technology that directly synthesizes graphene on a plate using “coal tar pitch”. It is a byproduct that is annually produced in quantities of more than 450 thousand tons for one steel mill. The research team announced relevant accomplishments to Scientific Reports, the online science journal published by Nature. This technology can efficiently synthesize a large scale of graphene on a specific area of a plate. It is also eco-friendly since it recycles the byproduct. There are some ongoing researches about the synthesis of other carbon materials with coal tar pitch, but the synthesis of graphene is unprecedented. Normally, coal tar pitch is traded at around four hundred thousand KRW per ton, but as little as 1 gram can be used to produce one hundred thousand KRW worth of graphene.