Today, a new laboratory for physico-chemical studies of the properties of catalysts has opened in the YURGPU (NPI). Expensive equipment was purchased for her at the university's own expense – a synchronous thermal analysis device combined with a mass spectrometer. This is a huge achievement on the way of the university's development as a research center, which will certainly bring our university closer to the largest research sites, including international ones, in terms of capabilities!
The new equipment, which cost about 16 million rubles, allows you to study substances at high temperature, assessing changes in mass, heat release or absorption, as well as other characteristics. The samples are loaded into the working chamber, and then the researcher programs the necessary parameters of step heating, up to a temperature of 1600 degrees Celsius. As a result, the device records the smallest changes that occur with the substance.
In chemical technology, mining and other industries, this type of research is very much in demand, it allows you to study in detail the properties of substances and their capabilities. In addition, the device has an ultramodern mass spectrometer built in, with which you can study the composition of gaseous substances released from samples when heated. This is another large area of research, which is extremely in demand nowadays!
- This is a truly universal equipment that will allow us to conduct a variety of complex world-class research, for which a group of scientists from YURGPU (NPI) is already ready, - said the director of the Research Institute "Nanotechnology and New Materials" R.E. Yakovenko. - In addition, the equipment is suitable for active interdisciplinary use. It will be interesting not only for chemists working with catalysts, but also for representatives of other fields and even specialties! We invite colleagues from different faculties and research institutes to work in our laboratory.
The scientific team of the Faculty of Technology and the Research Institute of NTNM plans to start active experiments in two directions in the near future: studying the properties of catalysts, their activation and deactivation, as well as modeling the processes of gasification of carbon–containing materials. The new equipment allows you to determine the optimal reaction conditions at minimum loads, in addition, the device has built-in software that calculates the speed and other reaction parameters with high accuracy. These opportunities will certainly be useful to polytechnics when performing work on the state task in the field of obtaining oils and motor fuels from various carbon-containing materials.
- The creation of fuels and oils from carbon-containing waste is a global global problem, which we can now come close to solving! – told Roman Yakovenko. - For example, we can determine the optimal conditions under which we will get synthesis gas with the required properties from tar. And all this – which is extremely important - with minimal costs. The same studies in standard laboratory conditions require tens of kilograms of substance, many cycles of experiments, time and efforts of several specialists. Moreover, we could not expect such high accuracy of data processing before. Now, using the new device, we will conduct research faster and much more economically: a few milligrams of the substance and minimal labor and time costs are enough. The device will perform all the studies automatically and will give the result in the form of analytical reports. This equipment can be used both for conducting the deepest fundamental research and for solving applied problems: studying any substances and rocks, determining the melting point of metals, analyzing the composition of gases released, and many others. In addition, we are ready to take orders for the most complex types of analysis, for example, testing of catalysts and comparing their properties. Such services are in demand, and the university already has customers interested in them. Now our Research Institute is ready to cooperate with both Russian and international partners.
Another important activity of the laboratory is the development of young scientists. The specialists of the Research Institute have already begun to attract undergraduates and postgraduates to work on the spectrograph. The availability of equipment of this level at the university, as well as the active research that is being conducted using it, will certainly help to interest talented students in science even more.
Taking into account the new device, the scientific potential of the Research Institute of Nanotechnology and new materials in the field of studying catalysts and their properties has increased many times. It can already be said that there are no scientific centers in the Southern Federal District with such an impressive instrument base for this profile. And there are very few of them on a national scale.
The staff of the new laboratory has no doubt: the availability of this high–tech equipment and research conducted using it will help the university to participate even more actively in competitions for grant support of all kinds, and most importantly - to win even more often and confidently!
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