The Committee on Science and Higher Education of the Government of St. Petersburg has determined the winners of the 2021 grant competition for graduate and undergraduate students. Its main goal is to develop scientific activities of young people in different fields: from natural and exact sciences to medicine, culture, and art.
Among the projects presented by young scientists from Russia's oldest technical university are methods of evaluating the energy efficiency of electrical engineering complexes developed by Elena Zamyatina, kinetic studies of hydrogen sulfide sorption on iron-manganese ore, which Viktor Bolotov is engaged in, and several others.
Some of the guys who received the grant as graduate students are today already active employees of various structural divisions of Mining University. Among them is Angelika Yeremeyeva, an assistant professor at the Department of Chemical Technology and Energy Processing. She presented a project on environmentally clean diesel fuel for decreasing the concentration of hazardous emissions during transportation in St. Petersburg.
The young woman does not know yet what she is going to spend the prize for but hopes that her research aimed to decrease harmful emissions will arouse the interest of the Committee on Power Industry and Engineering of the City Government, where the official application on the research work implementation has already been applied. The environmental effect is achieved through the use of bio-additives to fuel, made from renewable raw materials. Their chemical composition includes esters based on vegetable oil.
The cost of the innovation, which is already protected by four patents, is lower than that of hydrotreated diesel fuel. At the same time, it can reduce emissions of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides by up to 90%, while increasing the operating life of the diesel engine.
“This work started quite a long time ago, back when I was a student at the Department of Chemical Technologies. At first, we were developing a class of diesel fuel with improved performance characteristics. Then, when I entered postgraduate school at the Department of Industrial Safety, I focused on the topic of reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Angelika Yeremeyeva said.
She noted that scientific experiments were initially carried out on the bench engine, and then in the real conditions of coal mines, in diesel-hydraulic locomotives. That is, emission reductions were recorded both in the laboratory and industrial tests.
Another advantage of the fuel is that it can also be used in public transport, boiler houses, and industrial plants.
“As a student, I applied for this contest several times, but I never won. When I applied this year, I thought it would be my last application, so it was especially nice to get a grant now. Of course, it’s not about money, but recognition of the relevance of my work,” summed up Angelica.
It should be noted that student laureates receive a prize of 20 thousand rubles, postgraduate students receive 50 thousand rubles.
