Doctoral student Aneta Pospíšilová from the Department of Chemistry of Materials at the French Academy of Sciences won 3rd place in the competition for the Make our planet great again award for environmental and climate research, organized by the Embassy of France in the Czech Republic together with BNP Paribas. This prize aims to reward the research work of Czech students in the field of climate change, environment and sustainable development. 

The expert jury was impressed by the topic of her dissertation on poly-3-hydroxybutyrate, its isolation from bacteria and its use as a substitute for conventional plastics. Aneta Pospíšilová is working on her dissertation in the bioplastics laboratory under the supervision of Radek Přikryl.

“We have a large team working on PHB bioplastics research at our faculty. I am mainly involved in the isolation of the polymer from biomass, and then also in the search for industrial applications that the company Nafigate, with whom we have been cooperating for a long time, could implement,” said Aneta Pospíšilová. This could be for example in decorative cosmetics, which are literally full of microplastics and replacing them with degradable alternatives is desirable.

A prototype of eyeshadow containing PHB. Participation in the competition involved a detailed written presentation of the dissertation and then a presentation in English in front of the jury, followed by a lively discussion on the topic at hand.

More about the Make our planet great again competition