The prestigious Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (PSIPW) has arrived in the Czech Republic for the first time. On Friday, it was received in Vienna by physical chemist Radek Zbořil from the Centre for Nanotechnology of the University of Science and Technology and scientific director of the Materials & Environment Lab of the REFRESH project.
Virender K. Sharma from Texas A&M University, with whom Zbořil has long worked, is the leader of the four-member team awarded the Alternative Water Resources Award. Together, they have published more than 50 papers that have collectively received over 6,000 citations. Last year, for example, their joint invited publication on the use of atomic catalysts in water treatment was featured on the front page of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s premier journal, Chemical Society Reviews.
“The award is very much appreciated. As always, the competition was immense and it is an honour to be in the company of great scientists from universities and institutes in Texas, Berkeley and Milan. But more important is the topic of the research. A large part of our results have also been achieved thanks to the Center of Competence project, which I led as principal investigator for several years and in which we developed water treatment technologies that are applicable in practice. Thanks are therefore also due to the colleagues who were involved in this development. Ensuring drinking water is one of the global challenges and every step, even a small one, that brings us closer to this goal is very meaningful,” Zbořil said earlier.
The award is presented every two years in five categories to promote sustainable technologies related to water treatment and water resource management. Several Nobel Prize winners have received the award in the past.
Source: smaragdova.cz, “Radek Zbořil receives award for scientific contribution in the field of water”, available at www.smaragdova.cz.
