Author: biba

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/

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/

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