An international team of scientists from Russia, China and South Africa will create effective technologies for purifying and activating water using pulsed discharge plasma, reports official site of the Tomsk Scientific Center of the SB RAS. The three-year project is being implemented with the support of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science as part of a program of multilateral scientific and technological cooperation with foreign organizations.
The Institute of High Current Electronics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Electrical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the University of the Western Cape (South Africa) are participating in the implementation of the international project, which will end in 2024. The participation of employees of the Institute of Chemical Sciences of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, teachers and students of Tomsk State University is also planned.
– Previously, we have already applied for a similar grant several times, and the current attempt was crowned with success. One of the features of such a grant is that representatives of at least three organizations from the BRICS countries must act as co-executors. Each research team will begin to implement tasks in those areas in which it has already formed a scientific reserve and achieved certain successes, - says Dmitry Sorokin, Head. laboratory of optical radiations of ISE SB RAS, project leader from the Russian side.
In the laboratory of optical radiation for a long time on an ongoing basis, research has been carried out on the formation of pulsed discharges in gaseous media. During the implementation of the grant, scientists from the ISE SB RAS will conduct fundamental research on the effect of an electric discharge in water and vapor-gas media on pollutants of various nature. In addition, the water treated by the discharge will be used to affect crops.
– The mechanisms of purification and activation of aqueous solutions have much in common. As a result of the ignition of an electric discharge, a large number of various nitrogen- and oxygen-containing active particles are formed, including ions, nitrogen oxides, and hydrogen peroxide,” explains Dmitry Alekseevich. – In an aqueous solution enriched with such particles, processes effectively begin to occur, as a result of which the destruction of pollutants occurs. In turn, the particles that contain nitrogen oxides have the same basis as fertilizers used in agriculture. Thus, the water after activation can be used to process and soak the seed.
Eduard Sosnin, a senior researcher at the ISE SB RAS, who is a member of the scientific team as the main performer, specializes in studying the effects of electric discharge and plasma on biological objects. The results, obtained jointly with specialists from the Siberian Botanical Garden of TSU, showed a positive effect of the effect of activated water on the seeds of some wheat varieties.
During 2023 and 2024, the study of these processes will continue in cooperation with chemists and biologists; and in the field will be tested on the cultivation of wheat varieties, which were subjected to pre-treatment with water activated by electrical discharge plasma. In this way, it will be possible to trace the full life cycle of a plant - from seed to harvest. The result of a three-year cycle of work should be the technology of plasma activation of water, which could be used in agriculture.
Together with Chinese colleagues, it is planned to study the physical properties of pulsed discharges in liquid and vapor-gas media, and with partners from South Africa, to develop a module based on excilamps that produce ultraviolet radiation for the disinfection of aqueous solutions. It is assumed that this module will become one of the components of the complex, which operates on the basis of a dielectric barrier discharge, which is designed to clean water flows from pharmaceutical waste.
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