Prestigious award for student Tomáš Čermák: Prize of the Learned Society in the category of high school student

The work deals with corona discharge in alternating current under atmospheric pressure and its effect on Escherichia coli bacteria. The goal was to create a cheap and low-power disinfection device generating AC corona, which would allow the phenomenon to be studied in detail. AC corona discharge was investigated in the presence of water from the point of view of electrical properties using the Lissajous method, time- and gas-flow-dependent measurements, and electrostatic field simulations; reactions in the discharge were analyzed using FTIR and UV/Vis spectrometry, measurement of production of reactive oxygen and nitrogen species (RONS) in water and gas, and calculation of rotational and vibrational gas temperatures. The result of the work is the effectiveness of the inactivation of E. coli by AC corona and the influence of individual mechanisms (temperature, UV, RONS, etc.) on the resulting antibacterial effect.