91ÊÓƵÍø

The priority work was carried out by a team from the 91ÊÓƵÍø in collaboration with the HUN-REN Energy Research Centre, with research support provided through a direct grant from the European Research Infrastructure Consortium (ERIC). The first author of the study is Zoltán Balogh, who defended his PhD thesis at the UD School of Chemistry this spring.

- Research on aerogels, the lowest density solids in the world, started at our university about 20 years ago. We focus mainly on specific applications, in medicine, in biomedicine, aerogels can be very effective. This research that we carried out was on the potential of healing bone tissue in an international collaboration funded by ERIC. The consortium monitors the published work that it patronises, and as they were very pleased with our study, they published it as a priority news item on their own website," said József Kalmár, Associate Professor at the Department of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, UD, and head of the research.

Although aerogels are experimental materials, they are of great importance in modern applications due to their special nanostructure, high porosity, chemical functionalisation and full biocompatibility. Moreover, they can be made directly from biomaterials, so the full circular economy model can be applied to them.

One of the special features of the research is that they are trying to introduce a new approach to PhD studies at the Faculty of Science, whereby students are recruited with a full-time job that does not double their workload but just helps them with their studies. Zoltán Balogh's excellent relationship with the HUN-REN Energy Research Centre at the Institute of Chemistry has enabled him to work as a research assistant at the Centre while he was doing his PhD, which has resulted in multiple positive ramifications.

- There was a great deal of potential in this project, and I was lucky to be able to combine my work and my studies, and the two even complemented each other. During the research, synthesis and characterisation were carried out in Debrecen, and in Pest I was able to work with a special method, small-angle neutron scattering," said Zoltán Balogh.

As the study showed, the cellular studies carried out at the Institute of Biotechnology at the Faculty of Sciences are promising and there is potential for further research; however, this would require complex medical experiments involving laboratory animals. 

- If we want to get to products, we need to get out of the lab, which is very difficult. The kind of basic research where I sit in the lab and am happy with the results is gone; we are trying to go straight to the product with all these materials. We have a number of ongoing projects, both at home and abroad. We are working on creating a usable, patentable product from this research as well," said István Fábián, professor at the Department of Inorganic and Analytical Chemistry.

For the research summary

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