UJEP, Czech Republic

Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Usti nad Labem is a public university founded in 1991. UJEP is the oldest and largest higher education institution in the Ústecký region in the North Czech Republic and represents significant research, the educational and cultural centre of the region.

UJEP consists of 8 faculties and offers a wide range of study programmes (55 programmes and 173 specialisations). Currently, about 8,800 students study here.

The research activities of UJEP are focused on two main topics: Materials and Technologies for the Environment and Quality of Life, and the Role of the City and Region in the Complex of Current Challenges. UJEP has a developed system of adult and online education and cooperates in research and education with foreign partners from the EU (Germany, Sweden, Finland, Slovakia, Croatia, Great Britain), partner countries (Turkey, Ukraine) and other countries worldwide (USA, Kazakhstan, Vietnam).

The proposed project involves the Faculty of Environment. Faculty was established directly after the “Velvet Revolution”, in response to the Czech Republic’s need for qualified personnel in the field of environment, protection of natural resources and revitalization of nature, after the environment in North Bohemia was severely damaged by years of improper exploitation of nature (mainly by various mining activities) during socialism. The Faculty of Environment consists of four departments: Environmental Chemistry & Technology, Information and Geoinformation, Natural Sciences, and Community Service in Ecology, offering educational programmes at Bachelor, Master and PhD levels.

Over 31 years, Faculty has developed a broad research portfolio related to environmental protection, including innovative wastewater treatment, bioremediation & phytoremediation, phytotechnologies with biofuel crops, value chain of bioproducts, composites with integrated biological agents, and biosensors.

Over the past 10 years, the Faculty of Environment has distinguished itself as an excellent research and education centre in the field of analytical environmental chemistry. The laboratory background has been significantly expanded from sampling of environmental constituents to sample processing and final instrumental methods, especially chromatography.

In 2015, UJEP became a member of the research infrastructure NanoEnviCZ (Nanomaterials and Nanotechnologies for Environmental Protection and Sustainable Future, www.nanoenvicz.cz) through the Natural Sciences and the Environment Faculties, whose mission is to offer research services to other organisations and companies. Here it also has access to the partners’ research laboratories, especially in the field of processing and characterisation of materials.

In connection with the growing need for intellectual property protection, pre-seed activities, commercialisation of research results and transfer of research results into new technologies and services, a technology transfer system was introduced at UJEP in 2014-2015.

In 2015, the Centre for Technology Transfer (CTT, ctt.ujep.cz) was established under the leadership of the Faculty of Environment, which was expanded in 2020 and renamed the Centre for Technology and Knowledge Transfer. In the same year, the Innovation Centre of the Ústí Region (ICUK, https://icuk.cz/) was established as a joint centre of the UJEP, Ústí Regional Governmental, and the regional Chamber of Commerce to strengthen competitiveness by supporting innovation and entrepreneurship and build capacity in research and innovation.

In 2017, UJEP joined the Czech Circular Economy Association (CAObH, http://www.caobh.cz/), which aims to promote the principles of the circular economy, save primary resources, and reduce the amount of unusable waste.

In 2020, the new building of the Centre for Technology and Natural Sciences (CPTO) was opened, where Faculty is located currently and has well-equipped laboratories in chemical, biological, and phytoremediation studies. Specifically, Centre CADORAN was established at UJEP in 2022 as the output of the project CACTU (https://www.fzp.ujep.cz/laborator-cadoran). Laboratories of the centre are equipped with liquid chromatography (Agilent technologies 1290 Infinity II) with a mass detector (Agilent technologies 6495 QQQ) for the analysis of non-volatile substances, and gas chromatography with a mass detector (Agilent Technologies 7890/7000D). The workplace is equipped with an organic carbon (TOC) analyser from the Skalar company for the analysis of total organic and inorganic carbon in liquid and solid samples, several devices for sample pre-treatment and concentration are available (e.g., homogenizer 1600 miniG from the SpexSamplePrep company for the preparation of extracts using the QuEChERS method, ultracentrifuge, device for sample separation using SPE columns). The centre has portable analytical instruments, such as XRF (determination of elements), a Raman spectrometer (determination of organic substances) and a RemScan device (determination of oil pollution in the soil).

Faculty intensively cooperates with Cluster association Wasten (http://wasten.cz), which deals with linking research and production capacities in the field of varied waste treatment.

In 2022 the new Pyrolysis Laboratory was established as a joint project of UJEP and WASTen which equipped with Mobile laboratory pyrolysis units are intended for the low-volume laboratory tests of the thermal decomposition of solid or liquid materials. Units allow stepwise temperature exposure of a sample without temperature drop between each step. In the first step, the temperature exposure of the material is up to 400 °C, in the second step – up to 800 °C; the exposure time is adjusted from 0 to 120 minutes; the temperature of the individual steps is thermostatically controlled with an accuracy of ± 2 °C. In 2022 PhD students Hana Burdova and Robert Ato Newton were specifically trained to work with the new equipment at CADORAN and Pyrolysis Lab.

The growing quality and capacity of science in recent years are reflected in the increase in research projects, including prestigious projects supported by the Czech Grant Agency, Czech Technical Agency, Horizon, Cost, CORNET, and NATO SPS. Applied research has been provided in close cooperation with companies from the OP EIC programme.