Laudation of the winner of the 2015 Gran Prize
Your Excellency, Mister President, Ladies and Gentlemen!
It is my great honour and pleasure to present a laudation to Prof.
Zoltán Noszticzius; Széchenyi and Polányi laureate, the Winner of the
2015 Gran Prize for his patented invention SOLUMIUM.
Before going into the details of Professor Noszticzius’ CV and
contributions, I would like to give you some background on the
evaluation criteria of the AWARD. During selection, the members of
the Board of Judges (slides: Board of Judges’ photos) take into
consideration the seven following aspects:
– Novelty (innovation, original idea)
– Social responsibility
– Sustainable thinking
– Environmental care
– Economic potential
–Technological aspect
– Interdisciplinary approach
This year, the Board selected the winner of the prize unanimously,
without any doubt, as the awarded product SOLUMIUM satisfies all
criteria of the award, as I will explain to you in due course.
Prof. Noszticzius graduated as a Chemical Engineer at the Budapest
University of Technology and Economics in 1965. He was a full
Professor at the same university between 1991 and 2012, when he
retired but was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus by the
university. He served as the head of the Department of Chemical
Physics from 1994 to 2007, and as the head of the Group of Chemical
Physics from 2007 to 2012.
He received his Candidate of Science degree – the then
equivalent of Ph. D. – in 1981, and the subsequent Doctor of Science
degree in 1990; both from the Scientific Qualification Committee.
During his scientific career, he studied transport processes like
diffusion and membrane transport, oscillatory chemical reactions,
chemical waves and reaction-diffusion or Turing patterns. For his
achievements in these fields, he received the Széchenyi Prize in 1990,
and the Polányi Prize in 2003.
He spent several years abroad at various universities, among
others 4.5 years in Texas, and one year in Germany, as a visiting
scientist and professor.
(slide 1) He has begun dealing with chlorine dioxide during his
research work on Turing patterns and nonlinear chemical dynamics.
He soon learned that ClO2 is far more than a simple “nonlinear”
reactant; it is a highly effective disinfectant, or, in other words, the
“ideal biocide”. When Professor Noszticzius realized in 2006 that this
compound can be applied as a very effective, environment- and
human-friendly disinfectant, he decided to initiate a research
concerning its highly beneficial properties. He and his co-workers
achieved three major results in that work which is now recognized by
the Gran Prize of 2015:
1. Invention of a process to produce high purity chlorine dioxide
(„Solumium”) solutions, patented in several countries including
the US and Sweden,
2. Foundation of the company SOLUMIUM Ltd., to commercialise
these solutions, and
3. The scientific discovery that ClO2 is a size-selective disinfectant
that guarantees the advantageous medical applications of
Solumium.
(slide 2)
1. The basis of the invention is the discovery that all silicone rubbers
can be applied as a selective membrane for ClO2 transmission. While
ClO2 is able to permeate through such a membrane so rapidly as if it
were made of liquid water, silicone rubber is practically impermeable
for any other water-soluble component of a ClO2-producing aqueous
reaction mixture. Using the silicone rubber permeation, high purity
ClO2 solutions can be manufactured simply and effectively. This
process has been patented. (slide 3)
2. Professor Noszticzius – together with his son Vilmos – founded the
company Solumium Ltd. in 2007 to produce and commercialise the
hyperpure chlorine-dioxide solutions. (slides 4–6) At present, the
company has three products: Solumium Dental, Solumium Oral and
Solvocid, what you can see here in the exhibition room as well. The
advantageous properties of these products are summarized in the
“Solumium, the 7-star disinfectant” flyer. (slide 7)
3. It has been known that, while ClO2 solutions kill bacteria within
seconds, the very same solutions are not harmful for humans. One
can even drink them in a considerable quantity without any negative
consequences. However, there was no known explanation for this
unexpected selectivity between bacteria and humans.
ClO2 reacts quite quickly with four amino acids contained in the
proteins of all living creatures among the 20 amino acids building
them. Thus, the chemical selectivity of the traditional antimicrobial
drugs cannot play any role in this case. (slides 8-12) Professor
Noszticzius and co-workers could prove that it is the size of the living
creatures that really matters in selectivity. Bacteria – for example
Staphylococcus Aureus (“Staph”) – are much smaller than human
cells, not to mention the human body. Applying a reaction-diffusion
model, Professor Noszticzius’ team have shown that the “killing time”
of a living organism is proportional to the square of its characteristic
size. This way, small cells are killed nearly instantaneously, while big
ones can survive if the contact time with ClO2 is not extremely long.
Their results were published, end of 2013, in the scientific journal
Plos One.
(slide 13) It is important to mention that chlorine-dioxide is
effective against all kinds of microbes, including viruses. This is rather
obvious, as viruses, and especially their receptors, are even smaller
than bacteria. For example, the diameter of the infamous Ebola virus
is only 50 nm and its receptors are only few nm in length (slide 14),
compared to the roughly 1000-times larger human cells. A virus
becomes ineffective when its receptors are damaged by ClO2.
Closing remark
Nowadays, the fight against antimicrobial resistance is of global
importance. Sweden accepted a leading role in this battle when
initiating the global REACT network as early as 2004 (slide 15). In this
respect, it is important to remark that bacteria are not able to
develop resistance against chlorine dioxide, as it was pointed out in
the previously mentioned publication by Prof. Noszticzius and coauthors. As Solumium is a local disinfectant, which can be used only
on the outer and inner surfaces of the body (on skin and wounds, or
on mucous membranes of the body like mouth or throat), it can
replace antibiotics in these applications. This way, we hope that
Solumium will be helpful in the global fight against antimicrobial
resistance.
(slide 16)
Professor Noszticzius and his team presented an outstanding socially
responsible attitude and strong commitment to provide a smart
solution to mankind for this fight. By awarding him and his team, the
Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Hungary pays its deepest respect
for this work.
Professor Noszticzius, I would like to thank you again on behalf of the
Gran Prize Board of Judges! Congratulations!