Chemistry Cleans Subsoil and Improves Health
Every day UTMN chemists face important practical challenges.
A chemistry lab is a mysterious place, decorated with smoking flasks, test tubes filled with colourful solutions and scientists in white coats busying about. Their predecessors – alchemists – endeavoured to create a philosopher’s stone, the legendary substance capable of turning base metals into gold. So, what are UTMN chemists doing in their laboratories today?
Nowadays, their work is connected with black gold. Tyumen Region is still full of oil, but it is becoming more and more complicated to extract. Pumping water under the surface significantly reduces the quality of the material. Chemists had to find a waterless oil extraction process.
Divide and pump
This technology is called oil recovery improvement. UTMN Polytechnic School has a Conceptual Engineering masters programme, where students can learn all about this technology. The educational process involves constant cooperation with physicists, mathematicians, ecologists and economists with a view to solving real project issues.
“Crude oil has a complex composition, and we need to establish its makeup before we start to conduct research into oil recovery”, said Nikolai Tretyakov, Head of the UTMN Centre for Chemical Analysis and Identification of Substances. “Our field is analytical chemistry, we separate compounds into its components and determine their concentration. It is essential to understanding how we can make oil more fluid and pure”.
It is not just curiosity that makes researchers work with oil. One of UTMN’s industrial partners – Gazpromneft PJSC – has bought specialized equipment and set UTMN researchers the task of developing surfactants, which will help extract viscous oil remains by changing oil characteristics.
“Currently, about 30% of oil remains in the subsoil, and only surfactants can extract it”, said Nikolai Tretyakov. “We have a 6.8 million ruble contract with Gazpromneft. Every oil type needs a special formula. Our goal is to develop efficient surfactants for every oilfield and then conduct detailed research”.
Beneficial science
Surfactants, developed by UTMN scientists, are very beneficial at the late stages of oilfield development, as most of the oil has already been extracted, and the remains become useless. A special surfactant developed by UTMN chemists allows the remains to be extracted and recycled.
The world’s largest chemical companies have been producing surfactants for 15 years, but Tyumen chemists are the first in Russia to develop this technology.
UTMN’s partnership with oil companies allows its students to participate in high paying research. Moreover, UTMN students receive scholarships and grants for their research and are later hired by leading oil companies such as Gazprom and Schlumberger.
From oil to medicines
A fundamental knowledge of chemistry, as well as the state-of-the-art equipment in their laboratories, make UTMN researchers recognized in academic society. Spectrometers, ion chromatographs and mass analyzers allow them to examine complex compositions from oil to biomolecules. Among Tyumen universities, only UTMN has a tensiometer by KRÜSS that gives its users the opportunity to study the characteristics of different types of oil.
However, it is not only the oil industry that makes chemistry such a perspective field - the basic human needs of proper food and medicine are also reliant on chemical research. There are two pharmaceutical plants in Tyumen region developing and producing modern drugs and biologically active compounds. Alumni of the UTMN Institute of Chemistry work at these plants, as well as in the laboratories of medical centres and a new radiological centre, using nuclear technology. Currently, the University of Tyumen is developing educational programmes on nuclear technology, connected to early cancer detection and prevention.
Link to Russian version: https://www.utmn.ru/presse/novosti/nauka-segodnya/326094/