Abstract
Research on the subject area I aims to promote environmental sustainability. This is achieved, on the one hand, by assessing the adverse effects, mainly due to human activity, and, on the other hand, by developing technological solutions to reduce the harmful environmental impacts.
The main aim of the air purification research is the development of the prototype of an air filtration and disinfection system which can remove the viruses from the air in hospital rooms, wards and medical waiting rooms, with 100% efficiency, decreasing the risk of infection of medical personnel and other patients. The developed system can be widely used/utilized in any indoor environment for disinfection and cleaning of the air, eliminating all viruses and bacteria which are sensitive to high temperature and UV-C radiation.
In the topic of enviromental photochemistry, heterogeneous photocatalysts are developed to utilize visible light for degradation of organic pollutants and infectious microorganisms in aqueous systems and on surfaces in contact with air. The catalysts are properly immobilized in surface protective layers or in water treatment systems in which photocatalysis is combined with other purification processes. Photocatalysts are also developed to store the energy of solar light in the form of environmentally friendly fuel (e.g. hydrogen).
Surface waters are exposed to a number of anthropogenic stressors (e.g. global climate change, various kinds of pollution, land-use changes). The limnoecological studies focus on the effect of these stressors to aquatic biodiversity by means of field observations and laboratory experiments.
The evolutionary ecological research focuses on two main current environmental problems: the ecological effects of habitat urbanization and extreme weather events. They investigate the influence of urban environment on the genetics, behaviour and reproductive traits of animal populations. They also study how extreme weather events, like heat waves, affect animals, particularly their reproductive success.
In the field of membrane technology, procedures for efficient capture and storage of CO2 can be developed by application of a membrane technique (gas separation). The separation can be enhanced by a bioprocess as well. In the application of the CO2 entrapped, other bioprocesses can play important roles, e.g. alga can use it as carbon source. Thus environmental-safe, sustainable technologies with higher effectiveness can be realised by combined application of membrane gas separation and bioprocesses.
The main aims in the topic of sustainability and recycling are to examine processes in the energy, oil, petrochemicals and plastics industries that can make a major contribution to sustainability by developing waste-based processes. This could include, e.g., the reduction of organic acids formed in the production of biofuels into saturated hydrocarbons – the realisation of this by photocatalysis instead of a thermal method will result in significant energy savings. The processing of solid waste and by-products results in a new type of structural material.
In the wastewater treatment research is focused on the development of the background of enzyme-based degradation system for residues of hard-to-break organic pollutants, to integrate into the commonly used microbiological wastewater treatment plants. The main goal is to integrate the already proven macronutrient recovery system with new technologies.
In the field of green chemistry, the aims of organic chemical research are to develop novel catalysts using (i) renewable resources, (ii) easily available and highly active transition metals as well as (iii) alternative solvents like ethanol, organic carbonates and ionic liquids for the production of valuable organic intermediates. Our other goal is the development of easily separable solid catalysts by the chemical modification of solid supports to enhance their stability and to reduce both the expenses and the contamination of the environment.
In the topic of radioecologiy appropriate models are used to assess the radioecological risk caused by different human activities by examining the environmental migration of radionuclides. The aim of the studies is to clarify these models by defining the parameters of the model (migration, transfer factor) and further parametrification of the input modules of the models so that human exposure can be estimated.
Research in water technology deals with the testing and removal of organic micropollutants from surface water, sewage, waste water and landfill leachate. The aim is to adapt possible removal procedures to develop a "smart system", which can apply a variety of technologies within a single water treatment system. This development could serve as a basis to design individual smart water treatment systems for apartments/single-family houses/office buildings, etc.
Hungary