We are pleased to announce that in the XII Edition of the Gold Medal of Chemistry competition, DuPont special awards went to the students of our Faculty: Julia Moszczyńska and Katarzyna Pianka.
The goal of the contest is to award a prize to young researchers for the best bachelor or engineering thesis in chemistry and combining chemistry with other disciplines: physics, material science, biology and medicine. The contest holders are the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the DuPont Company. Honorary Patronage was taken by the Polish Chemical Society, Committee of Analytical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Prof. Maciej Żylicz, President of the Foundation for Polish Science.
The topic of Ms. Julia Moszczyńska's bachelor thesis is "Nanostructured CuO - the promise of healthier water" (supervision: Dr. habil. Marek Wiśniewski, NCU prof.). It describes the synthesis of CuO nanomaterials, and their use in the separation of proton and deuterium oxides, which would allow the production of drinking water from seawater.
The main objective of Ms. Katarzyna Pianka's engineering thesis, entitled "Importance of membrane techniques in food engineering - use of microfiltration process in tomato juice separation and evaluation of membrane fouling" (supervision: Dr. habil. Joanna Kujawa, NCU prof.) was to carry out surface modification of polymeric polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) membranes using industrial bio-waste - chitosan. The use of chitosan stems from a zero-waste philosophy for constructing new separation materials.
All of the theses we awarded are characterized by innovation at the level of concept and implementation, but most importantly, they refer to the most crucial challenges of civilization - says Andrzej Palka, CEO of DuPont Poland.