The regular Tatarstan Petrochemical Forum opened on September 2nd. This year, the high-profile event held at the Kazan Expo IEC is dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Our university takes an active part in the work of the forum.

The event was opened by the President of the Republic of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov, Deputy Minister of Energy of Russia Anton Inyutsyn and President of the Union of Oil and Gas Producers Gennady Shmal, who solemnly cut the red ribbon.

In his greeting, Anton Inyutsyn stressed that the Tatarstan Forum occupies a significant place among regional exhibitions, and Gennady Shmal congratulated everyone on the upcoming holiday - the Day of the Oil and Gas Industry Worker, noting the unprecedented high rates of development of the Republic of Tatarstan.

Rustam Minnikhanov's pleasant duty was honoring the winners of the traditional competition «The Best Exhibition Project». Acting rector of KNRTU Yuri Kazakov received the Grand Prix diploma in the category «Energy-saving Technologies and Equipment»: for the first time in 27 years of KNRTU’s participation in the forum, such a high award was conferred on the technology of deep processing of heavy hydrocarbon raw materials in a supercritical aqueous fluid (authors - N. Bashkirtseva and S. Petrov). This is not the only development of KNRTU that has earned high appreciation at the republican level: high-performance light-transforming energy-saving coatings (authors - Y. Galyametdinov and A. A. Knyazev) received a II degree diploma in the same nomination.

The head of the republic also toured the stands of the specialized exhibition «Oil, Gas. Petrochemistry», held within the framework of the forum. It is attended by 100 exhibitors - representatives of the real sector of the economy, educational and scientific institutions from 18 regions of Russia. The KNRTU exhibition received special attention from the President. Acting rector Yuri Kazakov and vice-rector for research Alexander Kopylov presented new developments with great prospects for implementation in various sectors of the economy.

A light-converting polymer composition with an active additive based on the europium metal complex, which can be used to create coatings that can convert UV radiation harmful to plants into red light that is good for plants and, as such, can be successfully used in greenhouses, was developed under the leadership of professors Yuri Galyametdinov and Andrey Knyazev. Rustam Minnikhanov personally made sure that the technology works by observing the transformation of an ultraviolet lantern beam into a stream of red light on a greenhouse model.

New highly efficient technologies in petrochemistry were developed under the guidance of Professor Harlampy Harlampidi: a bench-scale laboratory facility was launched to study the processes of basic organic synthesis, which allows the development and comparative testing of catalysts.

Professor Natalya Bashkirtseva and Associate Professor Sergei Petrov became the authors of the Grand Prix technology for deep processing of heavy super-viscous oils in a supercritical aqueous fluid, which allows to significantly reduce the content of sulfur final products and resinous-asphaltene substances. An effective technology is aimed at environmentally safe and residue-free processing of substandard hydrocarbon resources to obtain high-quality raw materials for the petrochemical complex.

Much attention was drawn to the operating laboratory machine for the purification of water-in-oil emulsions using membranes, set up at the exhibition, which implements the technology created by Professor Ildar Shaikhiev and Associate Professor Vladislav Dryakhlov. Such machines of industrial design can be successfully used for water purification of oil reservoirs and, in general, for filtration of aqueous polydisperse systems.

Samples of bitumen obtained from extra-viscous oil were also presented at the exhibition. On the example of super-viscous oil from the Ashalchinskoye field, a team of researchers led by Professor Alexander Klinov and Director of the Inzhekhim Information and Computing Center Mansur Farakhov presented the technology of "thin-layer" oxidation of tar, which makes it possible to obtain commercial bitumen for road construction.

Yuri Kazakov said, “We managed to assert the university and present our developments. Our exposition aroused great interest of the guests, and it is especially pleasant that the President of Tatarstan is among them. He was interested not only in the technology, but also in the prospects for the development of the University and certain scientific areas, work in the field of training and retraining of industry staff”.