On the eve of the launch of the stations of the first stage of the Siberian Ring Photon Source Collective Use Center, scientists from all over Russia came to Siberia for the conference "Synchrotron radiation methods for catalysis and functional materials". European researchers took part in the event remotely.
"We need to prepare for the fact that the world's best microscope will soon be operating nearby in Novosibirsk," Leonid Sukhoi, Rector of Tomsk Polytechnic University, said at the opening of the conference.
And TPU is actively involved in the construction of the SKIF CCU: the university is responsible for the creation of station 1-1 of the first stage "Microfocus", the unique equipment for which is manufactured by Novosibirsk State Technical University (NETI). Alexey Gogolev, Vice-rector of TPU, told the conference participants about how in a short time it was possible to overcome difficulties with import substitution and the creation of Russian analogues of the necessary equipment.
Olga Kolesova, the head of the project "Siberian Universities and CCU "SKIF": vector of integration" (within the framework of the program "Priority 2030") of NSTU-NETI, presented the recently organized interuniversity consortium for cooperation with CCU "SKIF". Not only Siberian, but also leading Russian universities have united around the SKIF, the goal of the consortium is not just scientific cooperation, but to increase the prestige of natural science disciplines among schoolchildren and students by popularizing megascience installations.
Kamil Ramazanov, President of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Bashkortostan, vividly and intelligibly outlined the results of the work of an interdisciplinary team of researchers from many Russian universities and academic institutes on heat-resistant ceramic coatings for the blades of new generation gas turbine engines. Scientists consider ceramics to be the most suitable material for such coatings, which must withstand heating up to one and a half thousand degrees, but how innovative materials behave under real-time temperature load can only be viewed using C (programming language) .
"The conference is being held for the third time as part of the project to support unique world—class scientific installations of the Ministry of Education and Science, but for the first time we have traveled outside Novosibirsk Akademgorodok," said Jan Zubavicius, Deputy Director of the SKIF Central Research Center, Doctor of Chemical Sciences. — The project is aimed at upgrading the EXAFS spectroscopy station located on the VEPP-3 synchrotron at the Institute of Nuclear Physics SB RAS, in order to further transfer it to SKIF, therefore, synchrotron radiation methods run through the subject of all reports. The conference is attended by representative research teams from various scientific centers — Moscow, St. Petersburg, Voronezh, Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Tomsk. To our delight, there are a lot of young people, because the accompanying event of the conference is the youth school "Architecture and properties of functional polymers".
"Our school is held within the framework of the RNF project on the creation of biomimetic synthetic polymer systems, which I lead at M.V. Moscow State University. Lomonosov," added Dmitry Ivanov, the organizer and ideological inspirer of the school, Doctor of Chemical Sciences. — Functional polymers are arranged in a complex way, and synchrotron radiation helps to understand both the structure of the material itself and how it reacts to mechanical stress. In the future, our polymers should serve as a platform for the creation of biomedical products, in particular, implants, since they are able to reproduce the properties of soft tissues. These are both hydrogel-based systems where water is present, as in our soft tissues, and biomimetic polymer structures without the presence of a solvent, which have not yet had analogues. During the conference itself, we saw new prospects for cooperation with colleagues from the Laboratory of Shape Memory Materials at Tomsk State University. The use of our polymer systems in their metal structures can give impetus to the creation of a new class of biomedical products."
A preliminary agreement has been reached on joining MSU named after M. V. Lomonosov and Sirius University, which were represented at the conference by the D. A. Ivanov team , to the interuniversity consortium.
"Associations of scientists using synchrotron radiation in their work are needed, and the interuniversity consortium presented at the conference can serve as a good example," D. A. Ivanov believes. "Such associations are necessary both for the effective use of the megascience installations being created, and for the formation of new interdisciplinary teams."
Dmitry Anatolyevich promised to come to NSTU-NETI in the near future and talk about new polymer systems.