Dr. Taras Panikorovsky and Ivan Kuporev visited SCTMS during a working trip 
20 August 2021

20210820-01From 11 to 18 August, the head of the laboratory of nature-like technologies and technosphere safety of the Arctic of the Federal Research Center of the KSC RAS, Dr. Taras Panikorovsky and 3rd year student of St. Petersburg State University (specialty "Geology") Ivan Kuporev. During the trip, current projects were discussed and the stages of future cooperation were outlined.

The cooperation between SCTMS and KSC RAS began in 2018, and during this time three joint articles were published “The Na2−nHn[Zr(Si2O7)]·mH2O Minerals and Related Compounds (n = 0–0.5; m = 0.1): Structure Refinement, Framework Topology, and Possible Na+-Ion Migration Paths», «Sorption of multivalent cations on titanosilicate obtained from natural raw materials. The mechanism and thermodynamics of sorption», «Topological Features of the Alluaudite-Type Framework and Its Derivatives: Synthesis and Crystal Structure of NaMnNi2(H2/3PO4)3“, as well as a number of scientific projects. At the moment, the collaboration with Dr. Natalya Kabanova and Dr. Alexander Shevchenko continues, and Elizaveta Morkhova and Prof. Vladislav Blatov will join the scientific research.

On August 17, a seminar was held at which it was possible to discuss the prospects for cooperation between the Federal Research Center of the KSC RAS and the SCTMS team. Dr. Taras Panikorovsky spoke in detail about geological surveys on the Kola Peninsula, which is called the "mineralogical Klondike", the study of the structures and properties of a number of natural minerals, as well as the study of synthetic analogs of minerals (in particular, ivanyukite, zorite, sitinakite, etc.). Among the prospects for cooperation are the design of new materials with specified properties with subsequent synthesis and production based on raw materials from the Kola Peninsula; the application of topological methods in topomineralogy and topocrystal chemistry, which are the new directions for the Center for Nanomaterial Science of the Federal Research Center of the KSC RAS; the calculation of molecular dynamics to assess the promising properties of compounds found on the Kola Peninsula; the evaluation of the evolution of the topology of minerals and prediction of new possible structures based on it.

St. Petersburg State University student Ivan Kuporev spoke about the topological diversity of uranium compounds and about the program he created that calculates coordination sequences based on graph theory. Ivan plans to unify the names of topologies with the ToposPro program and to create a Web catalog and a Web service, as well as to cooperate with the topcryst.com team.