Nanotechnologies Entering into Big Business Medical Equipment Made by Czech Companies

Nanotechnologies

Entering into Big Business

In the past few years, the Czech industrial tradition has acquired a new dimension with the addition of nanotechnologies to its conventional practice. Nanotechnology based on the combination of organic and WHAT HAVE CZECH FIRMS inorganic components gives rise to new materials that have a variety of MANAGED TO ACHIEVE? uses, for example in medicine, the textile industry, air and water clean- According to the Nanotechnoling, and the manufacture of electrical batteries. ogy Industry Association of the practical application, the important thing for the Czech Republic Czech Republic, this technology does not mean just innovation.

Since the moment in 2004, when the Technical University in Liberec, In actual fact it signifies a technological change, in collaboration with Elmarco company, developed, as the first whereby man can manipulate matter at the workplace in the world, an industrially usable nanofibre, this new molecular level, across all sectors. technology has witnessed a dynamic development. Thanks to the The portfolio of Czech nanotechnology firms physical properties of nano microscopic particles a thousand times is quite broad. Among other areas, it includes thinner than the human hair, this technology has found its way into the manufacture of photocatalytic paints with a number of Czech manufacturing firms. The absolute majority of titanium oxide nano particles. This practically firms whose core business is the use of nanotechnologies in their transparent paint has an extraordinary ability operations are born global companies, which operate on the interna- – to clean the ambient air and remove viruses, tional scale and seek trade partners in other countries. bacteria, toxins, and cigarette smoke from it.

INVESTORS AND THEIR NEED TO EXPORT tion in cities and industrial agglomerations.

Currently, more than 15 private research companies and some Recently, a Czech firm filed a patent application 70 manufacturers in the Czech Republic use nanotechnologies in for an electrically conductive nanofibre. When their operations. In addition, there are specialised centres in this electrical current is passed through it, the fibre country to which firms come for consultation to become acquainted acquires the capacity to kill viruses and bacteria with new scientific developments. Twenty-six workplaces of the in contaminated water. The material can be

Czech Academy of Sciences, 37 university faculties, and 9 research used for different purposes and in different organisations financed by the state in the Czech Republic con- areas, including the military environment and cern themselves with basic research in different nanotechnology healthcare, and can be useful in third-world areas. Despite being the cradle of nanotechnology research and its countries, where clean water is scarce. This principle can be used to reduce air polluin future is to arouse the interest of investors from neighbouring NANOTECHNOLOGY TRIGGERS OFF states, to which Czech firms could export their nano products. All A REVOLUTION IN MEDICINE the more so, as firms in as many as 70 regions of the European Un- A real breakthrough is the use of nanotechion are focusing on nanotechnology research and nanotechnologies nologies in medicine, where thus far unheard are becoming an important instrument of the national economies in of possibilities are opening up. They can be their efforts to gain a competitive edge. used in diagnostics, drug distribution within the body, or the treatment of patients with the aid of special nano instruments. And moreover, nano medicine ranges in sizes in the order of billionths of a metre, and this is the size of the particles of which the human body is composed – molecules, the DNA helix, and also a large number of dangerous viruses. By enabling a detailed view of the biological processes, nanotechnology offers a new set of instruments for understanding the sources and mechanisms of diseases. Czech firms are keeping pace in this area and there are good prospects that, together with research laboratories, they will be in a position to offer many more products that will find their way into the world, despite the competition from nanotechnology development in the USA, Japan, and China.