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A bag of medals from the Innovations 2008 competition
A team headed by Professor Jan Hupka received the Gdansk Industrial Techniques, Science and Innovations Fair competition Grand Prix for their mobile cyclonic reactor. Out of all the constructions brought to this year's fair, the judging panel, headed by Prof. Włodzimierz Przybylski, deemed this particular one to be the most interesting. In all, Gdansk University of Technology scientists 'bagged' 14 medals. The largest number was collected by the Chemical Faculty – as many as seven, including the most important ones.
From the left: Prof. Jan Hupka, Dr Robert Aranowski and Adam Dargacz, a fifth-year chemistry student
'This installation serves to purify air, ferment sewage, absorb odours, remove dust and deal with all the other processes bordering between that gas and liquid state,' patiently explained Adam Dargacz, a GUT fifth-year student, when school trips stopped and enquired about the contraption on the trailer outside the Gdansk International Fair exhibition hall. 'It has already worked in real industrial conditions: at a Polpharma Pharmaceuticals S.A. plant and at the Saur Neptun Gdansk Sewage Treatment Plant.
After receiving the medal, Prof. Jan Hupka, the head of the design and construction team, added that a significant advantage of the reactor are the relatively small drops in pressure, which together with its comparatively small size allow for considerable reductions in energy consumption. 'In current research, basically, the trick is to come up with solutions that are reasonably cheap, clean, efficient and for the actual device to be maximally small.'
It is an interesting fact that the reactor can be controlled from a distance of as far as 200 kilometres. The project, which came into being at the Chemical Technology Department, is also a result of collaboration with scientists from the University of Utah.
The Marshal of Pomorze Voivodeship Award was granted to a team who designed and built Poland's first mobile air pollution testing device. The invention resulted from the combined work of specialists from the Chemical Faculty, the GUT Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics Faculty as well as the Gdansk Metropolitan Area Regional Air Monitoring Agency. 'Up until now air pollution monitoring systems have relied on stationary devices which could only take measurements at one point,' explains Prof. Ryszard J. Katulski of the Radio Telecommunications Systems and Networks Department. On the other hand, our device can be mounted on any vehicle, a bus or a taxi, from where air pollution readings are transmitted by radio to the server at GUT.
'The device has already been used to measure and analyse air pollution along major traffic routes: next to Gdansk Railway Station when it was under repair, and along Słowackiego Street in Wrzeszcz. Wherever traffic congestion occurs, the level of air pollution rises,' concludes Katulski.
The Gdansk 'box' invention is now on its way to Warsaw. Next it will be presented to the Gdansk Refinery, which is interested in purchasing a similar device. GUT scientists declare they are fully prepared to put their invention into production. Currently, this mobile monitor is worth something in the region of several tens of thousands zlotys.
The fourth Technicon Innovations Fair has now finished. For three days hall no. 3 and the International Gdansk Fair was visited by some three thousand people. This year's event drew almost a hundred firms, including institutes, scientific research centres and universities which presented over seventy inventions. Gdansk University of Technology was particularly well displayed: our exhibition section measured 140 sq metres. Apart from inventions with extremely complex names, there were also those whose purpose was easy to deduce; ones which, for instance, served the individual. Such was a special pen for people suffering from dyslexia, or the 'mouth-mouse' – a computer interface for people who cannot use their hands. 'The cursor on the computer screen responds to the movement of the lips thanks to an internet camera,' explains medal awardee Piotr Dalka, a doctorate student of the Electronics, Telecommunications and Informatics Faculty who together with Professor Andrzej Czyżewski designed the invention. 'Our method stands out from all the currently available commercial solutions insofar as it requires no gadget; you don't have to touch anything to operate the computer. All you have to do is open your mouth or purse your lips or stick out your tongue to move the cursor on the screen.
The winners of the TECHNICON - INNOWACJE 2008 Industrial Techniques, Science and Innovations Fair competitions.
The Minister of Science and Higher Education Cup