For two weeks first-year students got acquainted with the structure and scientific base of the Mining University.
First-year postgraduate students of St. Petersburg Mining University completed a two-week scientific and educational course called “Basic Competencies of a Postgraduate.” For the first time acquaintance with the structure of the university and its scientific potential was held at the training centre in Solnechnoye village. This site has been in operation for ten years, but now, after the reconstruction, its functionality has become much wider. The branch of the oldest technical school in Russia in the Resort area of St. Petersburg is equipped with dormitories that can house 114 people. All necessary infrastructure both for educational and acquaintance practice and for leisure time is created here.
For two weeks the future scientists have listened to the course of introductory lectures devoted to the development of fuel and energy and mineral complex based on digital technologies. They also learned the basics of publishing, patenting, and intellectual property protection.
The site in Solnechny allowed the guys to get acquainted better since many of them came to the Northern Capital from other countries and regions of Russia or graduated from other St. Petersburg universities. For example, a postgraduate student Milana Kryukova is a graduate of St. Petersburg Railway University, her scientific interests are devoted to the study of aerogasdynamic processes that take place in the subway tunnel during its entire life cycle. On one of the final days of the course, the girl also decided to run for the position of stream supervisor for the class of 2021. The aspirants briefly introduced their campaign program to their colleagues. The leitmotif of all presentations was a reasoned story about the portrait of the future headman. The basis of the plot laid such traits as responsibility, communication skills, the ability to build a dialogue, both with teachers and other graduate students, and the skills of forming healthy relationships in the team for a fruitful scientific activity.
As part of the course, the students were introduced to the university’s flagship laboratories and research centers that deal with the problems of processing mineral and technogenic resources, improving technologies used in the Far North, reducing the technogenic load on ecosystems, and several others.
“When I enrolled, there was no such format as an express course in Solnechny, but even then the so-called new mission of postgraduate students began,” said Dmitry Sidorov, a third-year postgraduate student and researcher at the Arktika Center. “Over the past year and a half, a lot of new laboratories appeared at the university and the instrumental base expanded, which allows you to conduct world-class research. As part of the course, I told the guys about my experience of participating in conferences and competitions, not only Russian but international as well. And, since I am a researcher at the Arktika Center, I told them about its promising directions and scientific activities.”
As the senior postgraduate students noted, the basic competency training at Solnechny allowed them to use the time allotted for research work ergonomically.
“I kindly envy the guys who spent two weeks in Solnechnoyr because the course is truly unique. They were able to not only get to know the structure of the university in two weeks, but they were able to become a real team. For the postgraduate students of previous years, it took about a year. I think that such gatherings should become annual. It will be great if the thematic visits to Solnechnoye are also held for postgraduate students of senior courses,” said a second-year graduate student, representative of 2020 stream of training and chairman of the Council of Postgraduate Students Elena Troshina.
First-year postgraduate students spoke about their upcoming dissertations.
“I graduated from Mining University with a degree in ‘Electrification and automation of mining production’ and I want to apply my knowledge to solve scientific and practical problems related to drilling deep-access well to Lake Vostok and its penetration. The work will be carried out within the scientific area of ‘Technologies and techniques of well-drilling in conditions of Vostok station’ and is devoted to the development of a high-frequency electrothermal borehole complex for opening the subglacial Lake Vostok and maintaining the borehole in working condition. Experimental studies are planned to be carried out in the laboratories of the Arctic Research Center and at Vostok station in Antarctica. To adapt to the conditions of Vostok station and to obtain competencies necessary for drilling and research works, I, as a member of the Mining University team, will take part in seasonal works of the Russian Antarctic Expedition from December 2021 to February 2022.”
“I plan to devote my dissertation work to the development of energy efficiency criteria for the design and operation of renewable energy sources. Rector Vladimir Litvinenko formulated this topic at our first meeting at the Gorny IFC, as one of the priority areas. My work will be based on analysis, including the Arroyo index. Its principle is that it demonstrates how profitable the current energy resource will be in the future. The indicator speaks about the ratio of energy received to the energy used to produce new energy. If we talk about oil production, we can see that we keep investing to produce more, and by looking at this indicator, we can understand where we are going, because it is not static, but changing. By analyzing it, we can understand where we’re going and how much time we have to move to a new energy source.”
“Since my Master’s degree thesis, I have been working with perovskite-like compounds. Their main function is to act as oxidation catalysts. The peculiarity of the compounds, as many people say, is that you can use up to 90 percent of the entire periodic system of Mendeleyev to produce compounds. You can determine their chemical and physical properties very precisely. Why do you need this? Take internal combustion engines, for example. Fuel combustion produces a lot of exhaust gases, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, various nitrogen compounds. To oxidize or get rid of these gases mostly platinum or platinum-like metals are used, but perovskite-like compounds have never been used in practice. They are much cheaper and capable of working at higher temperatures and can be more finely tuned to a particular engine. My job is to find the most effective compounds for diesel engines. This will be useful for agricultural machines, rock mining equipment, and many other special machines.”
“I graduated from the Belarusian National Technical University. I visited Mining University for the first time in 2019 when I took part in the International Forum Contest of Young Scientists ‘Topical Issus of Subsoil Use’. I chose Mining University because it is one of the best universities in the world, where specialists are trained for the mineral sector. This year, as in 2019, I spoke at the forum ‘Current Problems of Subsoil Use’, where I presented a report on reducing the technogenic load on the environment when storing waste from potash production. The report was highly praised by the jury of experts and I was awarded a prize in the geoecology and sustainable development section. My dissertation will be based on the theme of my report, and the research object will be Belaruskali enterprise. The work is aimed at creating new technologies that will minimize the impact of potash production on the environmental situation in mining areas.
“I graduated from St. Petersburg University of Railway Transport with honors and I chose Mining University because here there is a completely different level of education and different infrastructural opportunities that allow me to do science as effectively as possible. Much attention is also paid to learning a foreign language, and the best graduate students get a chance to defend their degrees in Austria or Germany. This can be very important for a successful career in the future.
Note that 99 young men and women enrolled in the first year of postgraduate school. They are offered 120 areas in which they can write their dissertations.
