In 1938 the Balkhashtsvetmet plant produced the first copper, which had previously been imported from abroad, and in 1942 molybdenum, essential for the country's tank-building industry, was produced. Severonikel produced the first nickel for tank armor and aircraft parts in 1939 and cobalt in 1940. "Norilsk Combine" in 1939 received the first copper-nickel matte and high-grade matte, and by 1944 gave the first tons of platinoids and began producing 40 to 60 percent of all Soviet nickel. However, these breakthrough results simply would not have happened without many years of research by one man - mining engineer Konstantin Beloglazov.
Konstantin Fedorovich was born in 1887 in the small town of Kamyshin in Saratov province to the family of a bank clerk. After graduating from a real school in Penza, he entered the St. Petersburg Mining Institute.
It was the time of the first Russian revolution - the period of struggle against tsarism, which actively participated in the advanced part of the student body. Such important events for the country found an echo in the heart of the young Beloglazov. The young man went to meetings, kept and distributed illegal literature. He even brought a considerable number of books and pamphlets with him to Penza during his first summer vacation, for which he almost paid with his life...
"Upon learning that the gendarmes had arrested his sidekick, who constantly visited the Beloglazovs' family, Konstantin Fyodorovich immediately went through his library and carefully hid everything illegal. The police search that followed found only books permitted by the censorship, and the arrested Konstantin Fyodorovich, for lack of evidence, got away with a month's imprisonment. He was truly heartbroken when he learned that his colleague and beloved friend had been sentenced to death for his revolutionary activities," said Naum Greiver, a metallurgist and scientist colleague of Beloglazov's at the Mining Institute, in his memoirs.
The emotions experienced then forever turned the young man away from political activity, and he concentrated entirely on science. In his third year, the student was "admitted" to the metallurgical laboratory of his alma mater, where he became interested in analytical chemistry. His successes proved so significant that work in this field became a full-time job.
While still a student, he began developing techniques for quantitative chemical analysis. His thesis "Fluidity diagram and microstructure of copper-antimony alloys" caused a wide response and revealed a number of previously unknown features of the diagram; in particular, he established the existence of a polymorphic phase close to the composition Cu4Sb. This phase was found to correspond to the maximum hardness and minimum conductivity.
The work was so innovative that the student was summoned to his office by Nikolai Aseev, the head of the metallurgy department. He walked around the room in thought for a long time and finally asked:
"Konstantin, who are you? Le Chatelier says one thing, Beloglazov says another. Alexander Baikov says one thing, and Beloglazov says another. Who are you to argue with them?" "It's not me, Nikolai Pudovich, it's the results I got that argue, and I'm sure of them." "Look, Konstantin! I'll support you, but how others - I do not vouch."
The diploma was brilliantly defended and awarded to Konon Lysenko. Its fragments were published by various scientific journals, including six foreign ones. The ambitious researcher got the position of an assistant at the department of analytical chemistry of the Mining Institute, where he worked all his life, becoming a professor and the head of the department of general and physical chemistry.
Teaching was teaching, but Konstantin Fyodorovich always devoted the main efforts to scientific activities, setting himself the task of solving the major problems of industry. For example, in 1916 by assignment of the Commission for Military and Technical Assistance he invented a method of producing titanium tetrachloride from ilmenite and found an exceptionally simple method of regeneration of platinum catalysts, which gave high-quality platinum.
The next important stage in Beloglazov's life was the creation of the country's first Research Institute of Mineral Processing Mekhanobr. Having become one of the organizers, he was its technical director for a long time. The intensive development of mineral enrichment processes in the USA, while in the USSR only the first shy steps were made in this field, pushed him to open the Institute. The most challenging tasks of the Institute were assigned to develop specialized industry, which required learning the structure of natural raw materials and products of their processing, understanding the theoretical essence of technological processes, mastering their application in practice and creation of necessary equipment.
What was Beloglazov's contribution in solving these problems? The answer is unambiguous: the development of the basic enrichment process, flotation, and the creation of quantitative chemical and mineralogical analysis.
It was Konstantin Fedorovich who is called the pioneer of flotation studies in the Soviet Union. In 1922, he was the first to propose the method of film process with the use of reagents for coal enrichment, he examined in detail the process of oily and foam flotation, establishing the limits of their applicability.
In 1933 the scientist turned his attention to the importance of the kinetics of the process, without taking into account which it is impossible to correctly assess the formulation and conditions of flotation. He put forward and substantiated a new original theory based on the law of acting masses and the second beginning of thermodynamics. Physicochemist first derived the equation for the rate of flotation, established a mathematical relationship between the strength of attachment of particles to the gas bubbles, the concentration of the collector and its physical and chemical constants, established the dependence of extraction on the dispersion characteristics of the mineral and much more.
As for quantitative chemical and mineralogical analysis, here Beloglazov created a new scientific discipline, which allows to establish the peculiarities of mineral raw material structure, to outline the rational combination of its enrichment, to forecast the prospects and theoretically possible indicators of processing, to properly organize the control of plant operation. To calculate the importance of these studies for the economy of a developing country is simply impossible!
As a result, Beloglazov became the author of a number of original methods for studying the material composition of various minerals. Among them are the method of evaluating the composition of organic ash, the method of determining pyrite sulfur and organic sulfur, which made it possible to predict the results of coal enrichment of various deposits; methods allowing to establish the value of copper losses in pyrite tailings and to determine the content of copper recoverable by flotation of ores; the method of direct determination of silicate nickel content in nickel ores.
Research for vanadium, molybdenum, and nickel became strategically important for the Soviet country in the 1920s and 1930s.
Vanadium was needed primarily for the defense industry - it was used to make shells that could pierce the armor plates of tanks and to reduce the weight of metal products while increasing strength. In the West, by the early thirties the secret of its industrial production had been discovered, but in the USSR it was still unknown. It was necessary to find a recipe immediately! Metallurgists were offered to use ultra-poor and peculiar in composition ladle slag from the Kerch plant that contained only 2-3% vanadium pentoxide and were usually sent to the dump.
Beloglazov, who by that time had already learned how to produce vanadium from the ash of a number of oils and bitumens, was charged with the task of developing the method under the watchful supervision of Sergei Kirov, the first secretary of the Lenobkom and Sergo Ordzhonikidze, the People's Commissar of Heavy Industry of the USSR.
Only 12 days after the beginning of the research, the research team confirmed the real possibility of recovery. The technology was perfected within half a year. In May 1932 the jar with 10 kg of vanadium pentoxide - the first vanadium obtained in the USSR - went to Moscow as a proof of successful completion of the mission.
In 1933, Konstantin Beloglazov and his colleague Naum Graver switched to the Kola Peninsula and Norilsk ore deposits - molybdenum and nickel. The scientists were approached by the industrialists themselves, who had heard about their successes.
"Usually chemists try to solve the problem only chemically and not otherwise, enrichers only by physical methods - on the tables, flotation, sorting and in no way want to deal with chemistry. And so we took the way of combining these two methods, the way of applying physical and chemical methods, and I think this should bring much better results than looking for ways with only one method. No one in the world has ever processed molybdenum ores using both mechanical and chemical methods, and the joint work of our enrichers and the Mining Institute showed that it would be profitable," Vasily Kondrikov, the manager of the Apatit trust, emphasized at the meeting in Kirovsk on using the resources of the Kola Peninsula.
Then the meeting ended with an agreement with the university on a multi-year alliance and two contracts: for enlarged laboratory research on Takhtarvumchorr molybdenum and for metallurgical processing of Moncha-tundra copper-nickel ores.
A special research "Nickel Group" consisting mainly of LGI scientists was created to search for technologies. It turned out to be the only university research group, which for 30 years had permanent staff and uninterrupted selfcontract financing from the industry. Konstantin Fyodorovich acted as the head of research on raw materials and their enrichment, as well as a consultant on all issues of metallurgy and chemistry.
Academician Pyotr Kapitsa once said that scientific truth will always make its way into life, but it is up to people, not truth, to make this path faster and more direct.
In the shortest time under Beloglazov's direction, efficient technologies for producing molybdenum, copper, nickel, cobalt and platinoids from sulfide copper-nickel ores were developed, which served as the basis for the design, construction and commissioning of Severonikel and the Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Combine. After being tested, the new methods were introduced at plants throughout the country - at the Balkhash copper smelter, Kirov, Krasnouralsk and Ridder concentrators and other enterprises.
In 1943, Konstantin Fyodorovich was awarded the Stalin Prize for the development of methods of extraction of non-ferrous and noble metals from sulfide copper-nickel ores. For his achievements in scientific activities he was awarded the title "Honored Worker of Science and Technology".
Konstantin Beloglazov died in 1951, leaving behind not only valuable developments, but an entire dynasty of mining engineers. His three sons graduated from the same institute as his father and subsequently held executive positions at research institutes, specialized universities and enterprises. His grandson, Ilya Beloglazov, became Dean of the Mining University, and today the great-grandson of the famous physicochemist works here.