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(Last updated: 7 Aug 2012)
Trends and opportunities
The market
The field of nanotechnology has a long history in the Czech Republic. Today, industries based on nanotechnology are a rapidly growing niche in the Czech economy being strongly supported by the Czech government. It is expected that in 2013 the overall world nanotechnology business will grow 23 per cent (Source: iHned.cz).
The absolute majority of domestic firms involved in nanotechnology are so-called ‘born global’ companies. These are firms which in order to be successful must rapidly internationalise and find business partners abroad. At present, there are approximately 142 Czech private companies involved directly in nanotechnologies and at least 26 institutes in the Czech Academy of Science, 37 university faculties and nine state-funded research organisations are conducting basic research in various areas of nanoscience (Source: CzechInvest). In addition, there are several well functioning clusters that identify and support the potential for cooperation in the use of nanotechnologies among scientific and research institutes and businesses. They associate companies, universities and research institutes with common interest to cooperate on research, development and commercialisation of products.
Czech researchers have been developing nanotechnology applications in a broad range of of fields including:
- nanoparticles
- nanofibres and nanocomposite materials
- nanobiology and nanomedicine
- nano/macro interface
- new phenomena and materials for nanoelectronics
- environmental protection
Nanofibres hold a strong position in the country’s nanotechnology sector thanks to Technical Univerzity in Liberec and the work of Professor Oldrich Jirsak, who holds more than 40 patents related to fibres and non-woven textiles. The most remarkable success story of the Czech Republic in the area of nanotechnology is primarily in the industrial production of nanofibres. In cooperation with the Technical University of Liberec, Elmarco has developed the unique Nanospider technology, which made it possible to manufacture a prototype machine for production of non-woven nanofibre textiles.
The Global Nanofibres Gateway is a unique portal created in the Czech Republic. The portal provides information about nanofibres in a number of research fields and information concerning the sizes of markets for nanofibre products. The Nanofibres Gateway is accessed by companies and universities from all over the world, and speeds up the introduction of new nanofibre applications while simplifying the process of bringing such applications to fruition.
Opportunities
Opportunities for Australian businesses and research institutions exist in the field of joint R&D projects, joint ventures, investment projects and commercialisation support in following specialisations:
- Industrial production of nanofibres and derivatives
- Production of monocrystalline materials for electron microscopy and laser applications
- Electron lithography used mainly for holography applications
- Wound healing, tissue regeneration, targeted delivery of drugs/treatments, gene therapy, instruments for detecting damaged DNA
- Production of laser interferometers for metrology and the machine-tool and microelectronics industries
- Water treatment using iron nanoparticles
- Surface and antibacterial treatments
- Research of nanostructured and cross-linked polymeric materials
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