“A few days after the TV footage of the Czech Head Awards was broadcast, I received a phone call from people at the Taiwan representative office saying that they were interested in my discovery of a new method of methanol production and whether I would be willing to discuss a possible collaboration,“ says Jiří Dědeček from the J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry of the CAS. “But it was no coincidence, they have a specialist on their behalf who is dedicated to finding interesting scientific projects,” adds the successful scientist.

From patent to practice

Jiri Dedecek’s team has created and described new unique reaction centres that can activate oxygen in a previously unknown way – by splitting it. The oxygen thus split can then be used to oxidize methane to methanol. Direct oxidation with molecular oxygen is an ideal way to significantly reduce the cost of methanol production, bringing mankind closer to technologies for producing cheaper fuels and many other industrial applications.

In Taiwan they have ITRI (Industrial Technology Research Institute), which is very successful in transferring scientific knowledge (building prototypes, semi-operational equipment). He is able to develop the technology and put it into practice. He handles the entire process from patent to technology sale. We agreed that he would try to put our discovery into practice together with us.

We do have a possible catalyst, but that alone is not enough, chemical production needs the whole technology, of which the catalyst is only the basis. And technology development is what ITRI does. But the key to the collaboration is that our catalyst for methanol production will lead to a technology that will be cheaper and more profitable than what is currently being used. And the first step is to prepare the catalyst and verify its activity with the partner, if that makes any sense at all. So prepare the catalyst.

So it’s not that hard to do experiments like this.

Then you are sorely mistaken. If you step out of the classical world of scientific research, i.e. you get a grant for some research, you manage it successfully and publish the results in a scientific journal, and you want to get the result of the research into practical life, you will face many pitfalls. We anticipated at the outset that our research would have enormous potential for practice, so we patented it. But if you want to patent something, you can’t publish the results before filing a patent application, because you can’t patent the published results. But a patent requires completely different data from the article at the beginning of the research, and you have to get it. And if you’re not publishing when you get them, you’re not meeting the criteria for evaluating science. This demotivates especially young members of scientific teams. If a young scientist does not publish widely, his or her personal evaluation and perspective deteriorate significantly. If he is ever exposed to really tough global competition, it is mainly young scientists.

Science is an international playground. And when you want to try to bring your results to fruition, you get into this strange funding gap right at the beginning of your experiment, where suddenly there are no resources for further research. You need to do some experiments specifically for patent deeds. Most importantly, you should demonstrate that an idea from a scientific publication is useful. In our case to develop the necessary active catalyst samples for the Tchai-wan partner and there are no grants for that. And our scientific institutions, in the vast majority of cases, do not have the resources for this risky activity of proving the viability of an idea. Although the leadership of the Academy of Sciences is aware of this and is currently preparing something that could facilitate this situation.

How much money did you actually need to continue?

Small, units of millions.

In your case, thanks to your success in the Czech Head competition, an investor was found, but why is there so little interest in the results of scientists from companies in general?

I don’t quite get it. When I was in America, I saw how behind every project a private investor was already peeking out and keeping a close eye on how the development was progressing and when it would be taken over. That’s completely lacking here. My impression is that businesses don’t need us, that they just have a way to make profits without innovating. Or maybe we are contributing to this by failing to present our results and intentions as scientists in practice. We can hardly expect companies to study impact journals. I guess only large multinational companies with their own extensive research can afford to do that. They also routinely fund basic research to keep track of what is happening in their field. Sadly, in my career I’ve only experienced this kind of support twice and each time it was from a big global player. So the lack of interest from domestic companies will definitely not be our lack of quality. Recently, the Academy of Sciences has been trying to offer its research to Czech industry, but the Czech Head is extremely important; thanks to it and television, information about our capabilities and discoveries will reach Czech companies directly through TV screens. And then maybe they’ll get interested in the possibility of working together.

Now let’s get to your project. What was the main result of your research?

Our research actually has two results. One primarily scientific, the other more practical. We have managed to develop a structure that can break an oxygen molecule, even at laboratory temperatures. However, the oxygen molecule is stable, and you need either a high temperature or an enzyme to activate it. And we have something that activates oxygen like an enzyme, but it looks completely different and works completely differently too. So it’s like an inorganic analogue of an enzyme that doesn’t exist yet. Something that, at least according to previous knowledge, should not have existed. So a unique discovery. That’s the scientific meaning. The practical one is that oxygen broken in this way is extremely reactive and can oxidize methane at room temperature. That’s also a very stable molecule. Don’t be fooled into thinking that methane and oxygen are exploding. This is precisely because getting them to react is very difficult, and then the problem is to manage that reaction. And oxidation of methane at low temperatures leads not to combustion but to the formation of methanol. At low temperatures, in a relatively inexpensive way, not like the current process, where we first produce carbon monoxide and hydrogen from water and methane at high temperatures and pressures in a large chemical plant, and then reassemble them into methanol at high temperatures and pressures in another plant. So our discovery could (I stress here that it could, not that it will, we are working on it) enable smarter, cheaper methanol production.

I got the impression that the result of your research is more versatile and has the potential to be applied not only to methanol production. In which areas?

Of course, our activated oxygen could be used to make other necessary organic oxygen-containing molecules, of which there are many. But we’re working on that right now, and until we file the patent applications, I can’t talk about the results.

Instead of concluding, a question for Michala Beluského, Head of the Transfer Projects Department of CeTTAV.

How is CeTTAV involved in the case?

Our cooperation with the scientific team is long-term. A strong domestic investor has been secured for the project and is currently supporting the project by sponsoring targeted industrial development. We are now negotiating a license with him. It is also a success that the CAS approved the intention to establish a spin-off company that will commercialize the new catalyst. Thanks to our cooperation with ITRI, we also have an experienced foreign partner for prototyping and scaling up the technology to industrial scale.

With the use of texts by the CAS and Česká hlava PROJEKT z.ú., editorially edited and shortened.