On November 17, 2023, correspondents from the "Poisk" newspaper visited the walls of our research institute “Nanotechnologies and New Materials” and took an exclusive interview with employees.
“Come on, I’ll show you how our chemists live,” says Yuri Ivanovich, throwing open the door of one of the oldest buildings of the South Russian State Polytechnic University. And in the voice of Razorenov, rector of SRSPU named after. M.I. Platova, I hear boyish pride. I wonder what you can surprise with at the Nanotechnologies and New Materials Research Institute? A laboratory full of modern instruments, crammed into a building that is more than 115 years old? Well, yes, here is the brickwork, laid out in an arch over the corridor, the walls of which are hung with tablets with the covers of foreign chemical journals, here are the doors to the workrooms... Stop. At the end of the corridor there is a corner with armchairs and a coffee table, shelves full of books, a coffee machine, a couple of electric guitars, and over there you can see a gym with a basketball hoop and a door marked “Shower”. Where are we?
“At the Research Institute “Nanotechnologies and New Materials,” explains its director Roman Yakovenko, greeting him. — We have three departments at the institute, where about 80 employees work. There are 30 people in the heterogeneous catalysis department. Of these, two thirds are candidates of science under 35 years of age, graduate students, and undergraduates who are already involved in research. Everyone has their own scientific task, no matter how small. Many chemical processes are continuous, so 24-hour shift work is organized. In the laboratory of heterogeneous catalysis, for example, there are now a dozen installations that require constant monitoring. Some are improving catalysts, others are optimizing technology, others are operating non-stop for months, as if in production, developing a new product. People spend a lot of time here. They themselves and the university tried to make them feel comfortable within the old walls. The Nanotechnologies and New Materials Research Institute has something to brag about. And not only with first and second quartile magazines, where our achievements are even presented on the covers, but also with new technologies that we offer to business. Which ones? Ivan will tell you.
Junior researcher Ivan Zubkov first of all demonstrates samples of artificial gasoline and arctic diesel fuel, clear as a tear, which is remarkable because it does not freeze at very low temperatures, has a base without impurities of sulfur, nitrogen and other, as he puts it, “aromatics” . This is important because 80% of equipment and transport in the harsh conditions of the Arctic are forced to run on diesel fuel. And the logistics of supplying them is very complicated; they are delivered via winter roads, which is why fuel is very expensive. We propose to produce it from what is burned today. Have you probably seen torches blazing over oil production sites? There are hundreds of them. According to various sources, every year from 25 to 50 billion cubic meters of associated gas are flared in Russia. There is nothing good about this: combustion products enter the atmosphere, and when generating electricity from associated gas, a lot of CO2 and water are released.
“In general, it’s not for nothing that there is a government decree imposing fines for mismanagement of natural resources (combustion of associated petroleum gases”), Roman Evgenievich again enters into the conversation. — We offer manufacturers several technologies for their profitable utilization: production of Arctic diesel fuel and oils, synthetic gasoline with a high octane number (90-92 without adding additives), synthetic ceresin.
— And how does business react?
— Towards the Arctic palette of fuels and oils - with interest, but also with caution. They would prefer to see a working pilot production facility in order to immediately calculate all the pros and cons of costs and income. And we are still at the stage of laboratory and pilot testing of the technology, and besides, we are offering something that no one has done. The uniqueness is that, having obtained synthetic oil from associated gas using the GTL (gas to liquids) method without any additives, we then produce Arctic diesel fuel, oils or gasoline from it. The processes are differentiated by catalysts, which we also developed and manufacture. Manufacturers are thinking because they understand that scaling and import substitution of all necessary components are still ahead. An installation with a capacity of 100 thousand tons per year is required. But, on the other hand, others don’t do this. For example, artificial gasoline and diesel fuel. Place a small modular plant near the oil production site and produce. Expenses? So now this hydrocarbon raw material is burned and fines are paid for it. What makes our range of work different? We are carrying them out according to the Priority 2030 academic leadership program, we are halfway there, and over the next two years we will bring a lot of things to marketable condition. After all, we are already approaching the signing of a general agreement with business partners on ceresin, which is very much needed by the domestic industry as a component of greases, an insulating material in radio and electrical engineering, an impregnation for packaging materials, etc. But we have not produced our own for a long time, We buy where we can.
— Why is your university excited about this topic?
— Previously, there was a synthetic products plant in Novocherkassk. And it produced ceresin, but from coal. After the Great Patriotic War, the plant was removed from Germany for reparations. In the 1950s, it was launched and worked, periodically updated with raw materials and catalysts. Along the way, coal was replaced by methane. But in the late 1990s everything began to collapse, and now all that remains is the site. So it entered the priority development area, where 20 production sites are provided. One of them is for our technology for producing ceresin from natural gas. The cobalt-aluminosilica gel catalyst we propose increases productivity by 10-15 times compared to what was previously used. The product is environmentally friendly. The price is several times lower than what other countries offer on the market. Do you see the structure outside the window near our research institute?
— Yes, in this installation I’m 6 meters tall! To obtain ceresin?
— Yes, a pilot single-pipe complex. In height - similar to industrial, in power - 1000 kg of ceresin per year. It is good because it has a high melting point and is free from impurities. We have already bought about 10 such installations from universities in Tyumen, Moscow, Perm and Ufa. Now we will scale the design, increasing the number of tubes by 1000 times. We transfer the technology to the customer, support the design and manufacturing of equipment, and jointly launch it. At the same time, the university is preparing personnel. In addition to ceresin, by the way, we can produce isoparaffin oils of the highest quality, and their market in the country is much larger - about 250-300 thousand tons per year. I am confident that the results we obtained under the Priority 2030 project will be in demand by the largest companies in Russia: Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Taneco, etc.
