Established 1999

INVENTION

18 kwiecień 2008

A beautiful mind

In defining my strategy against moisture, I took into consideration the faults and virtues of technology to date. However, I avoided their disadvantages. I treated the problem unconventionally. Previous technologies interfere with water in the walls. My concept assumes that the water stored in these walls should be regained for technological reasons, which significantly reduces costs. That is the heart of the matter. I came to the conclusion that the methods used until now were not only inefective but dangerous to walls and the health of those in the building. I began to use already existing water reserves in walls in the drying process and it worked. I relied on the theoretical work of Prof. Ilja Prigozin, a Russian Noble Prize winner – tells Wojciech Nawrot, Polish inventor.


Engineer Dr. WOJCIECH NAWROT



winner of 7 gold medals at International Invention Exhibitions and
member of the International Federation of Inventor’s Associations



talks to Jerzy Wojciewski


Among your 42 patented inventions, the most valuable and most frequently awarded and honored is the crystal injection technology for extracting moisture seepage from the ground. As a scientist, what led you to focus on this problem?
At a certain stage in my work on inventions, I realized that the most important goal is fighting the causes rather than the effects of exposure to water and moisture. That is the purpose of an effective technology for extracting moisture, to which I have dedicated most of my work in the past 25 years. Treatment of a number of buildings for public use has eliminated many troublesome problems – biological corrosion, rot, and technical degradation – mainly in older structures, although these problems are also found in many newly built constructions. This is the result of mistakes in the design or poor execution of construction plans.
Thousands of old buildings, especially from the 18th and 19th centuries but also from the 20th century, were fitted with poor insulation that deteriorated over the years and moisture took its toll. Fifty years for buildings in that respect is a long time. I’m not talking about the buildings which didn’t have that kind of insulation. The creation of a technology that could produce new insulation in existing structures has provided a technical challenge over the past 20-30 years. Justified by rational and economic premises, the technology to create new insulation was needed to revalue buildings which were heavily degraded technically. That technology, which put an end to what we might call “social” problems, was crystal injection technology for moisture extraction. In Poland and around the world, the price of anti-moisture technology is increasing but not its effectiveness. Most of the technologies designed to address this problem were harmful to people. Moisture prevention was quite successful but only for a short time. New solutions were needed to replace old and faulty systems. The main issue is ecology and durability, which ensures that that dehumidification treatments don’t need to be repeated several times in the building’s “lifetime.” Monuments cannot withstand repeated technical interference, even in terms of dehumidification. They can simply fall apart.


Since these old technologies didn’t work in practice, your solution must be radically new…
In defining my strategy against moisture, I took into consideration the faults and virtues of technology to date. However, I avoided their disadvantages. I treated the problem unconventionally.
Previous technologies interfere with water in the walls. My concept assumes that the water stored in these walls should be regained for technological reasons, which significantly reduced costs. That is the heart of the matter.
I came to the conclusion that the methods used until now were not only ineffective but dangerous to walls and the health of those in the building. I began to use already existing water reserves in walls in the drying process – and it worked.


In approaching this method did you come across any theoretical solutions?
Yes. I relied on the theoretical work of Prof. Ilja Prigożin, a Russian noble prize winner who has lived for many years in Belgium. When he received the Noble Prize in 1977 he was already a naturalized Belgian. However, the body of work for which he was awarded as a physicist was created while he was working as a Russian scientist and member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
Prof. Prigożin described scientifically, mathematically and thermodynamically the unique phenomenon of crystal self-organization, for which he received the Noble Prize. Using his theoretical solutions and applying them for a practical purpose was the most crucial task. I became convinced that, in the same way and with enormously positive social consequences, this technology could be used on a massive scale. The phenomenon of crystal self-organization, on which I worked 11 years, has become a revolutionary solution in this area, particularly because of the positive results I was able to achieve.


Could you explain the mechanism for crystal self-organization and the essence of crystal injection?
The crystal self-organization phenomenon took place millions of years ago, during the formation of mountains, in the shape of narrow ring-shaped crystal cracks, similar to an bulls-eye, as can be seen from the picture next to the text. The frozen image of crystal self-organization is like a work of art. I decided to exploit this phenomenon for contemporary use, although not in such high temperatures or pressure of course. It worked, which provides me with a great deal of satisfaction, since I was able to create an ultra-modern technique – crystal injection – whose positive results are repeatable indefinitely. They serve practical goals and are inexpensive to implement.


Where did you obtain the funds for your experiments?
Several years ago, I didn’t have enough money for a majority of the experimental tests and couldn’t count on financial support from my employer since my accomplishment was achieved “without the blessing” of my superiors. Funds were frozen for new research, even for deserving projects. The instruments I needed to work stood literally on the other side of the wall in the state-owned scientific institution and I wasn’t allowed to use them. It was sabotage fueled by envy. Help from my immediate family – my wife Alfreda and my sons, Maciej and Jarosław – turned out to be useful in all of my experimental work.
In time I began to receive support from various scientific-research institutions and professional organizations, particularly the International Federation of Inventors’ Associations (IFIA), which gradually and objectively began to appreciate my accomplishments.


Your hardship was awarded more lavishly than throughout the history of “inventor suffering” for creating a method of crystal injection and implementing it in Poland and abroad. One manifestation of this was a “hail” of gold medals from seven International Invention Exhibitions…
One of the most important ingredients in the technology’s success is its strict verification process abroad, where there is a great deal of competition but where objective and reliable evaluations oblige. Its first participation in the International Invention Exhibition in Brussels in 1993 surpassed all of my expectations. My invention – a method of crystal injection – received a gold medal along with a special distinction from the jury, a medal from the Mayor of Brussels and an award from the Polish Ambassador to Belgium. Despite the risks, similar to those incurred when playing the stock market, I also competed in Pittsburgh (1996), Beijing (1996), Casablanca (1997), Nuremberg (1997) and Moscow (2001), winning gold medals at each exhibition.


According to my sources, there were other expressions of gratitude for your work…
Yes. Aside from the gold medal in Pittsburgh, I value the special award and rarely granted medal from the Russian Academy of Sciences. I would like to add that the International Inventors’ Organization recognized my seven gold medals as a record and, with the organization’s recommendation, I was decorated by the King of Belgium in 1997 with the Cavalier’s Cross and in 2001 with the Officer’s Cross.
I was very pleased to receive the gold medal in Brussels and the ones that followed. However, I was especially moved in Beijing where, on Tiananmen Square, in the presence of several thousand scholars from around the world, politicians, ministers of science, etc., as well as many television stations and reporters, the head of the jury called me forward in English by saying: “It is my great pleasure to announce the winner of the gold medal,
a representative of the nation of Copernicus and Marie Curie-Skłodowska, Dr. Wojciech Nawrot from the Military University of Technology in Poland, for his wonderful invention.”
I admit that at that moment I was a little choked up and my legs seemed made out of rubber…I approached, or actually stumbled the several meters to the jury chairman for the gold medal. I would like to add that in Beijing I received something like a gold supermedal for both 1st place in my category and 1st place overall, among over 4,000 inventions submitted. Subsequent medals in the next eight years have strengthened my status as an inventor. No one mocks or laughs at my inventions now – a very frequent and disturbing occurrence in the past. Many talented Polish and international scholars who previously didn’t know of me or avoided me now try to maintain contact with me.


How were you honored in Poland?
The title Inventor of the Polish Army gave me the most satisfaction. I was awarded this title in a competition survey in the Polska Zbrojna and Przegląd Wojsk Lądowych magazines in 1995. The next year, the then minister of culture and art, Zdzisław Podkański (today a deputy to the European Parliament), presented me with a medal “for service in building the National Theater.” For drying numerous monuments in Warsaw, I received the “Four ages of Warsaw community” medal and, for the entire body of my invention work, President Aleksander Kwaśniewski decorated me with the Cavalier’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta. A few well-known Polish scholars made sure that my name and accomplishments as an inventor are found in the Who’s Who? Encyclopedia. I am also pleased that readers of Przegląd Techniczny magazine bestowed upon me the title “Golden Engineer of the Year 2002.”


I am impressed with the Technological Park, built with money from your own pocket just beyond Warsaw city limits in Lubiczów. Where did the idea for the park originate?
One element of my success, thanks to widespread use of the crystal injection method in saving moisture-ridden buildings, and particularly historical structures, were a number of patents and licenses sold to many firms abroad and in Poland. My method has already been used to treat 11,000 structures in Poland and abroad, which has provided me with significant financial resources. They were necessary for the realization of my idea and dream: my own Technological Park. I am the owner of both the structure and land (which is confirmed in notary documents) on which was built an exhibition hall, laboratories, auditoriums and a hall with seating for 300 people. With these facilities, I can continue my work to perfect the crystal injection method and other inventions. Now I am an independent researcher, although I still work in the Military University of Technology.
The Technological Park is very large with a total area of 3,000 sq m. My research needs don’t require the entire space, so I rent a significant section of the structure to various firms. A type of feedback has taken place. The funds gleaned from patents and licenses created the Technological Park and now the building, in turn, allows me to continue my scientific work and inventions.
The main hall of the building contains a beautiful crystal, 2 x 2 m and with a mass of 400 kg, which demonstrates the principles of the crystal self-organization technology.


The Technological Park, aside from its role in promoting technological development, will also have an informational-promotional function?
This is also an important function, to which we intend to devote a great deal of attention. We plan to organize symposiums focused on technical, scientific and trade issues. The auditorium will allow us to organize specialized conferences.
We have already made progress in this area. The APT inaugurated its activity two years ago during the 10 year anniversary of the Academy of Engineering in Poland. In the fall of last year, we hosted a national conference entitled Conditions for the entry of Polish firms into NATO and EU markets connected with supply quality. In June of this year we organized a conference for 300 participants on the quality standards, normalization and codification required by entry into NATO and EU markets. Co-organizers of the conference included, among others, The Academy of Engineering in Poland, the Warsaw School of Economics Department of Quality Management, the Institute of Optoelectronics at the Military University of Technology, the Warsaw School of Finance and Management and INISO – the Center for Application and Implementation of Quality Management Systems.


Jointly with the Military University of Technology, you have treated a few historic buildings free of charge.
Yes. We treated 20 structures free of charge including the building which houses the Maria Konopnicka museum in Żarnowiec, a historic 14th century church in Cegłów near Mińsk Mazowiecki containing an alter made by the famous Polish sculptor Wit Stwosz, orphanages in Ostrów Mazowiecki and Dębinki near Tłuszcz, a hospital in Węgrów, a rehabilitation center for children with brain damage in Otwock as well as many sacred buildings. The value of the work in the aforementioned buildings amounts to zl.1 million.


In thanking you for this interview, I would also like to add that two years ago Newsweek magazine ranked Dr. Wojciech Nawrot’s crystal injection method 12th among Polish inventions since the Jagiellonian dynasty (16th century) to contemporary times.



 

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