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Eleven research teams made it to the finals of Transfera Technology Day 2022, a competition for projects intended for commercial use. The winner of the competition was the team of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the UWB, consisting of Vojtěch Skřivan, Ondřej Sodomka and František Mach, with their magnetically controlled microfluid pump.

The winning pump, which is designed to handle fluids on a very small scale, is different from conventional models in that it contains no moving parts, such as a rotor, which means the design is much simpler, lighter and smaller. The pump is based on a thin multilayer structure made of a magnetic elastomer, a material that is elastic and magnetically active, which means it can be deformed by an external magnetic field. The fluid is pumped contactlessly by the magnetic field. The pump could be used in particular in medicine and various space projects.

Several laboratory prototypes of the pump have been created as part of research and development; the team is currently developing a prototype for clinical testing. The patent application for the final concept has already been submitted and is being considered.

The commercial potential of the projects was assessed by a jury composed of investors and other stakeholders. “To put it simply, technology transfer means turning an idea into a real thing. In our evaluation, we examine whether the idea can help people and has a chance of succeeding in a tough competitive market. Without transfer, basically no project has a chance of succeeding,” says Eva Janouškovcová, chair of the Transfera.cz association, which organises the competition. She says that the event primarily wants to show academics what investors think about the results of science and research and give them feedback on what could be done differently and better.