The grant money will be used to purchase modern and expensive equipment for research in the fields of mineralogy, mining, chemical technology, biology and medicine. “One of the mandatory conditions is that it must be a Russian team,” said Evgeny Borovichev, deputy general director of the center. “At least 20 percent.” The instrument database is continuously updated.
25 billion rubles were allocated over three years to 268 leading organizations to update the scientific instrumentation base as part of the national project “Science and Universities”.
The basis of the economy of the Murmansk region is mining. When developing deposits, it is necessary to know exactly the parameters of the rocks. Employees of the Geomechanics Department of the Mining Institute of the Kola Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences conduct such studies. They require special equipment. Thanks to the national project, the center acquired a new complex of automated tests “ASIS”. This device allows you to study in detail the properties of rocky soil.
Another type of instrument that the departments of the center need are the spectrometers. Atomic absorption spectrometers are highly respected by analysts. The instrument base of the Kola Science Center includes more than a dozen atomic absorption spectrometers. And to work with each of them, employees register in a queue. An accurate quantitative analysis of the composition of a substance is necessary not only for chemists, but also for ecologists, geologists, physicians, and botanists. It allows calculating the durability and safety of structures and coatings. In 2022, new KVANT-2mt spectrometers were installed at three institutes in the center.
“The samples we analyze are very diverse: spring water, burned forest soil, fragments of plant or animal tissue, food, filter washes,” explains Irina Yelizarova, head of the Center for Collective Use of the Institute of Industrial Ecology of the north.
Any sample can be taken to the laboratory. And scientists will find out what it is. “For example, it is quite hot in the laboratory now,” says Irina. “The substance we are studying is introduced into the flame of the burner. And the samples go one after another, so there is no need to freeze them. Organizations in other cities also need the results of the analysis on the spectrometer.”
The institute will soon receive a modern inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (as part of the same equipment upgrade program). A separate office has been prepared for him. Analysts are looking forward to the mass spectrometer. And with the hope of expanding the possibilities of analysis, because the sensitivity of these devices is higher by several orders of magnitude compared to atomic absorption.
