On the top photo: D.A. Osinkin, PhD in Chemistry
Despite frequent complaints about the fact that graduates do not go into science there a lot of young people in some academic institutions, and they are talented, active and successful. For example, in the Institute of High-Temperature Electrochemistry, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, most of laboratories is headed by researchers up to 40 years, and in this September M.V. Ananyev the 32-year-old doctor of sciences, winner of the award of the governor of the Sverdlovsk region for young scientists became the new director of the Institute.
This year the senior scientific researcher of the laboratory of solid oxide fuel cells of the IHTE, D.A. Osinkin received the Second Governor’s Youth Prize for the development and research of highly active electrodes for power plants based on fuel cells (SOFC).He is also a grantee of the President of the Russian Federation and project manager of the RFBR and RNF, aimed at development of new electrode materials for SOFC.Denis also has experience of cooperation with European partners: in 2011-2013 he participated in the Seventh Framework Program of the European Union “SOFC-life”, where he was the main executor in the direction of research of degradation processes in nickel-ceramic materials.
In the Institute of High-Temperature Electrochemistry, Denis came in 2003 as a fourth-year student of the Department of Analytical Chemistry at the Ural State University. Under the supervision of the PhD in chemistry Boris L. Kuzin, he began to study nickel-ceramic materials that are used as anodes of solid oxide fuel cellsand later continues to work independently.
As Denis said, nickel-cermet materials are interesting because they possess a whole set of properties that meet the requirements for SOFC anodematerials: high electrical conductivity, the necessary coefficient of thermal expansion, high chemical activityand high phase stability.Due to thisnickel-cermets are used as the base material for SOFC anodes, however, they are not sufficiently investigated, and for them there is a lot of conflicting opinions.In addition to practical significance, nickel-cermets are valuable as objects for studying the kinetics of electrode processes: electro-oxidation of hydrogen or electroreduction of water.Studies of nickel-ceramic materials became the theme of the candidate’s dissertation of Denis Osinkin, which he defended in 2010.
At the same time, the young scientist began studying other systems – a new generation of electrode materials based on strontium molybdate.According to Denis Osinkin, these are the most promising oxide anode systems for SOFC.They not only have a set of all necessary properties, including high oxidation-reduction stability, but also are tolerant to carbonization, that is, in the process of work, carbon is not formedat the anodes from such material.This is very important, since carbonization leads to a deterioration in the characteristics of the anodes when using hydrocarbon fuels.This is in view of the fact that one of the main tasks of the developer of SOFC materials is to achieve stable functioning of the fuel cell for a long time.
In studies of anode materials, Denis Osinkin collaborates with specialists from the Institute of Solid State Chemistry (UB RAS), in particular the Laboratory of the Chemistry of Compounds of Rare Elements, headed by PhD in Chemistry V.D. Zhuravlev, and the laboratory of oxide systems, headed by Academician V.L. Kozhevnikov, as well as with colleagues from the Tomsk Polytechnic University.
And in the end – is one more positive “youth” noveltyfrom the Institute of High-Temperature Electrochemistry (UB RAS). At the end of October the names of the winners of the competition for the grants of the Sverdlovsk region Governor became known.Among them, three postgraduate students of the IHTE — EvgenyTropin, NailyaSayetova and AndrewFarlenkov, who became a scholarship recipient for the second time in a row.
E. Ponizovkina
