The main prize of TA CR "Czech Idea" was awarded to CaviPlasma technology

On November 7, at the ceremonial announcement of this year's TA CR Awards, the main prize went to a project in the "Society" category, based on the invention of CaviPlasma. This unique water purification technology impressed voters with its ability to deal with hard-to-remove micropollutants. It’s already one of several awards that this patented invention has received.

The invention from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering has been patented by the BUT together with MUNI and CAS. The project, which was developed by colleagues from the Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Masaryk University together with tht company ZENA and the Water Research Institute, was successful in the competition. It was a partial development supported by a grant from the Technology Agency, where BUT was not directly involved, but it builds on an invention that experts from the Department of Fluid Engineering at FME have been working on for years in collaboration with colleagues from other fields.

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CaviPlasma can already boast the Transfera Technology Day 2020 Award, the MSV 2021 Gold Medal, and now also the TA CR Award 2024 in both the Society category and the main prize, Czech Idea. The public voted for the overall winner via the TA CR website and in person in the hall during the festive evening held in the historic building of the National Museum. The awarded project leaders took home an original glass statue by Czech designer Lukáš Jabůrek. “The TA CR Awards are given to the highest quality applied research projects of the past year. The award aims to serve as a form of motivation to sustain and encourage further collaboration in applied research,” said TA CR Chairman Petr Konvalinka.

Micropollutants, together with pesticides, pose the greatest threat to drinking water quality. These are substances released into wastewater daily as a result of human activity – mostly residues of pharmaceuticals and personal hygiene products, estrogens, or phosphorus. They are difficult to remove and thus often continue to flow through wastewater treatment plants into the aquatic environment.

The project leaders therefore focused on developing and subsequently applying plasma advanced oxidation process technology. Similar devices have so far existed only on a laboratory scale, whereas CaviPlasma has the potential to handle large volumes of water and thus find practical use. The technology uses physical and chemical processes occurring in plasma and has the potential to become an efficient and economically sustainable method for decentralized wastewater treatment, even at the level of individual facilities, such as heavily burdening operations like healthcare or pharmaceutical facilities.

Learn more about CaviPlasma here (in Czech).

Source: Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, BUT