Director of SCTMS, Head of the Department of General and Inorganic Chemistry of the Samara Polytechnic University Prof. Vladislav Blatov and Senior Researcher of SCTMS, Associate Professor of this Department Dr. Eugeny Alexandrov took part in the I Russian Conference of Teachers of Crystallography (September 19–21, 2022, Moscow, Moscow State University), where they talked about the features of teaching the course of crystal chemistry at the Samara Polytechnic University.Professor Vladislav Blatov made a plenary report on the topic "Reticular Crystal Chemistry - a New Look at Crystal Structures", and Dr. Eugeny Alexandrov made a report on the topic "Features of Practical Classes in Crystallography within the discipline “Theory of the Structure of Matter and Fundamentals of Crystal Chemistry” for undergraduate students in direction “Functional, structural materials and nanomaterials”. Both reports were devoted to a new branch of crystal chemistry, the so-called "reticular crystal chemistry", associated with the analysis of the topological properties of crystal structures.
“The topological approach is universal and allows us to consider all sections of structural crystal chemistry from a unified standpoint and form students' understanding of the architecture of various classes of crystals,” comments Prof. Vladislav Blatov. – In our reports, examples of the topological description of the structure of simple substances, intermetallic compounds, ionic inorganic and coordination compounds, molecular crystals, as well as the relationship between these classes, manifested in the topological properties of the corresponding networks, were considered. Methods of reticular crystal chemistry are implemented in the ToposPro software package, which is being developed by employees of the Samara Polytechnic University. ToposPro is easily mastered by students, and practical exercises include acquiring skills in working with ToposPro and performing topological analysis of various classes of crystalline substances with its help. The acquired skills of practical topological analysis of crystalline substances are further used by students in conducting scientific research within the framework of term papers, theses and dissertations.”