Materials and Technologies for the Environment and Quality of Life
MATEQ is a research area focusing on materials and technologies for the protection of the environment and bio-medical applications. The reason for this is reflecting on the needs of the region in the areas of the environment and at the same time the internationally recognized excellence of research teams at the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Environment UJEP with their partner departments of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
The research basis of MATEQ has a wide net of cooperating organizations in the Czech Republic and abroad. They are important national and international institutions. The university is already a part of research structures, such as the research infrastructure NanoEnviCz or CADORAN (Research center for analyzing organic substances in the environment), and develops activities directed at commercializing results of some of its results.
Areas of our MATEQ research with concrete results:
- New luminescent materials
- Modeling of chemical processes
- Bioanalysis using bioreporters
- Reactive sorbents and their uses
- Surface modifications
- Materials for medical application
- Photodynamic therapy using metal-organic frameworks
- Surface characterization of materials
Within the framework of MATEQ, the university intensively develops the innovation potential in progressively growing research areas of nanotechnologies and environmental technologies, and divided these topics into the following research activities:
BIONANO: Nanomaterials for biomedical application
BIONANO – in the past two years – has implemented projects aimed at studying interactions of dendrimer nanoparticles with model biological objects, using dendrimers as medicine carriers, researching and developing biosensors, and new polymer nanofiber materials for biomedical application.
In the future, further research will be developed focusing on nanomaterials, primarily based on graphene for biomedical application, and biosensors for analyzing bodily fluids.
NANOMAT: Nanomaterials with specific functions
NANOMAT continues the implementation of the OP VaVpl project and focuses on new composition materials based on graphene and oxides. The goal is to actively look for new applications of existing nanomaterials, as well as develop new types of nanocomposite materials usable for eliminating pollutants that are hard to degrade, and preparing them for commercialization.
NANOSURF: Nanostructured surfaces
NANOSURF focuses on surface engineering and surface chemistry: plasma and chemical activation of surfaces with specific functions for tissue engineering and sensorics, preparing of thin layers via magnetron sputter deposition and also plasma activation of powder materials.
Research will further continue the development of new methods of preparing functional nano surfaces by combining plasma and chemical technologies.
NANOSAN: Nanomaterials for innovation remediation technologies
NANOSAN is aimed at developing new nanomaterials for environmental protection. A system was created that transfers knowledge from the research stage towards implementation. The system has been further developed within the COMIND project: Support of transferring results of applied research towards new technologies and services (Technology Agency of the Czech Republic/GAMA).
In this area and over the past two years, fundamental research has been conducted in the fields of polymer nanofibers, and prepared technologies Nanospider for the use in environmental applications.
The main objective is to create new remediation technologies based on specific nanofiltrations and on nanomaterials for degrading pollutants in water, waste gases, and soil.
PHOTOMAT: Photoactive clusters and materials for energy conversion
PHOTOMAT focuses on developing new compounds and materials with extraordinary photophysical and photochemical characteristics, photochemical stability and porosity, within these research areas on using boron hydride compounds to create new fluorescent materials for laser technologies and energy efficient electronics, developing photoactive porous materials with specific characteristics for luminescent, separation, and biomedical applications.
These new materials can be potentially used as coherent light sources in optoelectronics, spectroscopy, detection devices, and as chromophores in luminescent solar concentrators, as well as in dermatology.
NANOCOMP: Molecule modeling for designing nanostructures and simulating technological processes
NANOCOMP focuses on two tasks. Using the methodology of simulating technological processes (electrospinning) and simulating the behavior of liquids in limited geometries and extreme conditions (nanopores) on the molecular level, and models nanostructures created as part of other key activities.
The objective is to predict structures and characteristics of these nanostructures and making more efficient the development and optimization of new biomedical nanomaterials (medicine carriers, molecular components for bioanalysis).