biba – Page 10 – Chemistry department

EMPOWERING STUDENTS IN SCIENCE: SUCCESS OF CHEMISTRY STUDENTS AT THE CONFERENCE “CONTEMPORARY MATERIALS 2020”

Four graduate students of Chemistry Department, Nina Babić, Dragana Žabić, Zorica Jerkić and Stefan Četić participated in research and experimental work on the scientific research project “Phytosynthesis, characterization and biomedical application of metal (Ag, Si, Cu) and oxide (ZnO, TiO₂, CuO, Fe₂O₃) nanoparticle: microbiological, biokinetic and toxicological aspect” which is financed by the Ministry of Scientific and Technological Development, Higher Education and Information Society of Republic of Srpska, under the mentorship of prof. dr Dijana Jelić and senior assistant Dragana Gajić, from the Department of Physical Chemistry, along with prof. dr Aleksandra Šmitran from the Faculty of Medicine.

Through experimental work, students were introduced and learned to work on several different instruments, necessary for the characterization of the materials they have synthesized. They mastered experiments involving photocatalytic and antimicrobial ability of metallic nanoparticles. The results of their participation in the project were presented at the 13th International Conference Contemporary Materials 2020 entitled “Empowering students in science: Phytosynthesis, characterization and biomedical application of metallic (Ag, Si, Cu) and oxide (ZnO, TiO₂, CuO, Fe₂O₃) nanoparticles: microbiology, biokinetics and toxicology aspect”. At the conference, 84 papers were presented and the work of our students was awarded along with three others paper by an expert commission consisting of eminent professors and academics as the best poster presentation.

Two main goals of the project were achieved: successful synthesis of new materials by the method of green chemistry, an economical and environmentally friendly way of synthesis, gaining insight into metallic nanoparticles photocatalytic and antimicrobial potentials, and active involvement of students in projects and scientific research. The achieved results confirm the quality of joint work and the importance of involving students in science, either through work on scientific projects or professional internships, where practical experience is gained and previously acquired knowledge is expanded.

Workshop within the RIS-RESTORE project

On Friday, October 16, 2020, the first Workshop within the RIS-RESTORE project was held. The full name of the Workshop held in the Seminar hall of the Ethno Village – Museum of the Ljubačke doline was the POTENTIAL FOR VALORIZATION OF RED MUD IN BIH. The workshop was attended by project partners from Bosnia and Herzegovina: Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Banja Luka, Faculty of Mining, Geology and Civil Engineering, University of Tuzla, Alumina d.o.o. Zvornik and the Federal Institute of Geology, Sarajevo. The event was also attended by representatives of mines, policy makers in the mining, science, technology and innovation sectors, representatives of companies, development agencies, researchers and investors – in particular, representatives of the Faculty of Mining, University of Banja Luka, Mining Institute in Prijedor, Faculty of Chemistry and Agriculture Belgrade, Institute for Protection and Ecology of the Republic of Srpska and the company for geological research IBIS-ENGINEERING.

The seminar was organized by the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics of the University of Banja Luka, one of the project partners, with colleagues from the consortium. The international RIS-RESTORE project aims to establish a self-sustaining network of stakeholders interested in the processing of red mud tailings in the region of East and Southeast Europe and the extraction of rare earth elements. Dissemination of the project, activities such as this workshop will strengthen the cooperation between local companies and scientific institutions, and enable the practical application of the results of scientific research in the development of new products/processes from waste materials. Due to the epidemiological situation, the workshop was held in accordance with the observance of all protective measures in the semi-open type hall.

Link: http://ris-restore.zag.si/

RIS RESTORE project: start of the field and research activities

Partners on the RIS RESTORE project funded by the EIT RawMaterials met on September 10 in Zvornik in the management of the company “Alumina”. The meeting was attended by representatives of four teams from Bosnia and Herzegovina: Federal Institute of Geology, Faculty of Mining, Geology and Civil Engineering, University of Tuzla, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Banja Luka, and the meeting was chaired by the Director of Integrated Protection B.Eng. Dragana Smiljanic.

The participation of “Alumina” in this project is extremely important since “Alumina” is one of the leading manufacturers of various types of alumina, hydrates, zeolites, silica gel and water glass that are used in various industries. The company currently exports over 95% of its products to more than 40 countries in the EU, Asia, Africa, USA, South and Central America and others. Alumina is the only factory in the Western Balkans that processes bauxite according to the Bayer process and produces various types of hydrates and alumina.

The company currently employs about 1.520 workers, has more than 800 suppliers and business partners from Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and the countries of the former Yugoslavia. Thousands of workers rely on the factory’s operations, primarily in Zvornik and the Birač region.

During the processing of bauxite ore, which comes from several deposits in Bosnia and Herzegovina, “Alumina” generates waste material called “red mud”. However, red mud still carries great potential as a secondary raw material. Extraction of useful minerals from such secondary raw materials has been one of the leading research branches in recent years, as well as many successful investments in the economy. For example, Vietnam processes almost all of the red mud from this country into useful products, and China is also achieving a recycling rate of about 5% and is making further progress. It is estimated that there are about 80 million tons of red mud in several landfills in Europe. The coordinator of the project is the Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute, and the partners are, in addition to those mentioned from B&H, also prestigious universities and institutes from Greece, Spain, Hungary, Switzerland, Croatia and Austria. During the project, the partners will make efforts to define the potentials for processing red mud into useful products, which would be a significant step towards reducing the amount of this waste, so far deposited. It is of great importance for our country that the valorization of red mud would lead to the creation of more workplaces in an already highly successful company such as “Alumina”, which is undoubtedly the most successful company in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the moment.

Link:

http://ris-restore.zag.si/

TRAKMAT / RAISESEE PROJECT: TRAINING ON MINERAL RAW MATERIALS PREPARATION

SP chemistry students, who are also researchers on the TRAKMAT / RAISESEE projects, visited Faculty of Mining in Prijedor on 4 September 2020. Colleagues from the Faculty of Mining trained them in the preparation of mineral raw materials. Grinding and preparation of defined fractions and different size particles is an extremely important area for both mining and chemistry. Namely, the catalytic or adsorption properties, as well as the light emission properties of particles used in the chemical industry, often depend on the particle size.

The researchers will apply the acquired knowledge in the coming weeks to gain the interest of younger interns of the RAISESEE project in this topic. In particular, the training was performed on charcoal materials of the company “Destilacija”. This material have shown excellent potential as additives for mining explosives when granulated below 2 mm in diameter and the international research paper was published on this topic recently. Through such research, students can once again understand the unbreakable bond of chemistry and mining, and the potential of domestic products in the chemical industry that can be based solely on domestic mineral resources or even secondary raw materials from mining. The TRAKMAT project is coming to an end, but the impression of the participants is that the cooperation between the students and the teaching staff of SP Chemistry and the Faculty of Mining has been strengthened and that many ideas have emerged from this project.

Links:

http://www.vladars.net/sr-SP-Cyrl/Vlada/Ministarstva/mnk

http://www.rf.unibl.org/

http://raiseseeris.istm.cnr.it/

https://eitrawmaterials.eu/

https://pmf.unibl.org/trakmat-national-project/

https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/18/4681

Advances in cooperation with “Bentoproduct doo” company

The “Bentoproduct doo” company is one of successful production companies in the Republic of Srpska. They are engaged in the exploitation and mechanochemical processing of the domestic mineral bentonite from the deposit in Šipovo city. Also, the mine and the factory itself employ several dozens of workers and are a stimulus to the development of the local municipality of Šipovo. It is a foreign investment in the production of high quality bentonite products intended for six different industries, and they proudly point out the fact that they are recently and they are the only local producer of bentonite carpets, i.e. waterproof bentonite membranes that are widely used in civil engineering and environmental protection. Thanks to the constant quality, with these products they prove that our domestic production follows the trends and offers the same quality as the world competition. „Bentoproduct doo“ exports more than 90% of its production.

Doors of this company have been open for a long time for the students of the Chemistry Department at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Banja Luka. Thus, in 2019, student visits were even realized together with a group of high school graduates who are interested in materials science, through the RAISESEE project. This time, production director Aleksandar Ubiparip and the executive director Irena Bijelić visited the Faculty. The topic of the meeting was the agreement on signing the Agreement on business-technical cooperation between the company “Bentoproduct” and the Faculty of Natural Sciences. As part of the future contract, research work will be carried out at the Faculty of Science on activated bentonite. The research aims to further prove the health safety of new types of bentonite so that it can be more widely applied, especially in the food industry. The experimental work will be supported through the RAISESEE project in order for the project interns to get acquainted with the methods of analysis. The skeleton of the research will be held by students and interns of Chemistry Deapartment, who are coming originaly from Šipovo city, in the hope that the company would recognize their efforts and give confidence to these young people in the future if opportunities for employment of chemists appear.

Links:

http://raiseseeris.istm.cnr.it/

https://bentoproduct.ba/

From one student to another: Training course for GC-MS

Training course for young researchers in Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry was held on August 27, 2020. Participants were master students along with researchers engaged at different projects ongoing at the Chemistry Department. Training was held by Nemanja Koljančić, MA in chemistry, one of the best graduated students of this department. At the moment, Koljančić is a PhD student of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava and he is able to transfer newly acquired knowledge. This way, the knowledge is being transfered from older students to their younger colleagues and also Alumni association of chemists is getting stronger. This training is important for experimental activities for a number of national projects that are active at the moment, especially for those in organic chemistry, polymer chemistry and environmental chemistry. This training is also part of the preparatory activities for the realization of the Erasmus+ K1 action between the two institutions which is approved and is starting from next academic year.

Chemistry Department Purchased a State-of-the-Art Microscope

Chemistry Department has improved its capacities for yet another piece of equipment. A digitized microscope model OMAX 40X-2500X equipped with a 14 MP camera was purchased.

Specific of this microscope is that it can observe samples with an exceptional resolution magnified up to 2500 X, but also samples of different morphologies, and it can take high quality digital photos and videos of the samples. Namely, within the research at Chemistry Department, it is very important to observe the shapes and dimensions of micro and nanoparticles that are synthesized, as well as the distribution of particles in composites of inorganic particles and polymers that are frequent research topics in master’s and diploma theses.

This microscope is a device for preliminary examination of particles which, if necessary, are then analyzed in more detail on scanning and transmission electron microscopes in the collaborative laboratories of the partners for Chemistry Department abroad.

The purchase was fully supported by the Ministry of Scientific and Technological Development, Higher Education and Information Society from two national projects in which this technique is needed: the project “Nanocomposites based on pyrophyllite: kinetic aspects of the release of bioactive molecules” and the project “Monitoring of organic matter and specific parameters at the molecular level from the Vrbas River in the area of the city of Banja Luka”.

Links:

http://www.vladars.net/sr-SP-Cyrl/Vlada/Ministarstva/mnk/Pages/default.aspx

https://hemija.pmf.unibl.org/en/vrbas-3/

https://hemija.pmf.unibl.org/en/pyro-clay19-3/

New website launched

Chemistry department just launched a new website!

VISIT TO “BENTO PRODUCT” FACTORY

LIR Evolution is a partner of PMF, a non-profit scientific research organization from Banja Luka, with a portfolio of over 50 successful EU projects, each of which has left a concrete mark in practice in its country. They have recently successfully applied with partners and received funding for the project “ENV.Net Inclusion of Environmental Issues in the Western Balkans and Turkey in the EU Political Agenda” (ENV.Net Factoring of the Environmental Portfolio for the WB and Turkey in the EU Policy Agenda).

The overall goal of the project is to contribute to improving the implementation of environmental policies in line with EU standards, in terms of improving and strengthening interactions between individual environmental actors, such as NGOs / CSOs, media and decision makers, providing an opportunity to create better technical and financial environment for operation in each of the countries in the region, as well as the region as a whole. The project deals with environmental issues, ie the use of waste materials as raw materials for new processes (circular economy).

The beneficiaries of the project were young people, especially students of the Chemistry Study Program and the Secondary School of Technology from Banja Luka. Young people will benefit in the sense that through a series of study trips provided by the ENV.net project, they will visit successful examples of the industry that processes our natural raw materials. One of those visits is the recent visit to the “Bentoproduct” company that deals with the processing of bentonite from the site near Shipovo.

This deposit has about 3 million tons of reserves in which the percentage of montmorillonite as an active substance is very high (72-95%). The company “Bentoprodukt”, created as a greenfield investment that processes raw materials and produces specific products based on bentonite clay for various industries, which as such achieve much greater value in the international market than the export of raw bentonite. Currently, “Bentoprodukt” offers products for the foundry and construction industry, agriculture, food industry and a program of granular bentonite, which is mostly sold as a litter for pets.
It was extremely useful for students and pupils to see the concrete application of mechanochemistry, through the exchange of calcium ions with sodium ions in the structure of this mineral. Mechanochemistry is one of the relatively new areas of chemistry that needs special attention both in research and in the teaching process, enabling students and pupils to apply, from the aspect of environmental protection, acceptable technological procedures. With the mechanochemical approach, it is possible to perform chemical reactions without the presence of solvents, by applying a mechanical force to the chemical compounds in the solid state. Removal of often toxic solvents from the production process significantly reduces the cost of the process in which less wastewater is generated.

https://srpskainfo.com/nauka-u-misiji-razvoja-zelenog-rudarstva-profesori-i-studenti-obuli-cizme-i-izasli-na-teren/

http://www.bentoproduct.ba/

http://env.net/

http://lir.ba/

Author: biba