Vladimír Hudák, a talented high school student from Gymnázium Jozefa Miloslava Hurbana in Čadca, Slovakia, has once again joined us at the laboratories of the Department of Plasma Physics and Technology and CEPLANT at the Faculty of Science, Masaryk University in Brno.
Vladimír first joined us last year as part of the High School Professional Activity (SOČ) programme. Under the supervision of Dr. Richard Krumpolec and in collaboration with our team, he worked on the purification of aqueous solutions containing food dyes using plasma-reduced graphene oxide (rGO). His project explored the use of this technology for water purification and its potential applications in environmental protection and sustainability.
His research achieved excellent results – Vladimír reached the final of the AMAVET 2025 competition and received the Quark Magazine Award.
This year, Vladimír has returned with a new research topic, again under the supervision of Dr. Krumpolec. This time, he is working together with Mgr. František Zelenák and Olha Ksenzova, M.Sc., with the research moving from environmental applications of rGO towards biomedical applications and the development of more effective filtration materials.
His current project focuses on the adsorption of two model uremic toxins – uric acid and vitamin B12 – on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) membranes. The main objective is to compare the adsorption capacity, kinetics, and toxin removal efficiency of untreated rGO membranes with membranes functionalized using plasma generated in different working gases. The study also investigates the effect of a physiological environment using PBS buffer on equilibrium adsorption and membrane stability. Initial experiments have also examined the influence of blood proteins using bovine serum albumin (BSA).
Vladimír plans to present his new research again in both the SOČ and AMAVET competitions.
