Rare and Precious Metals Research and Technological Center operating on the basis of the Department of Chemistry and Technology of Rare Elements named after K.A. Bolshakov

RTU MIREA is the first Russian university which has been training specialists in the rare metal industry since 1930. Today, RTU MIREA is the only research and educational center in Russia that implements the full life cycle of materials based on rare metals, from technologies for processing ore raw materials to the production of individual metals and their use in electronics, alloys for aviation and machine tools.

At the Lomonosov Institute of Fine Chemical Technologies there is an operating mega-laboratory – Rare and Precious Metals Scientific and Technological Center created on the basis of the Department of Chemistry and Technology of Rare Elements named after K.A. Bolshakov. This is a unique interdisciplinary research and technological center in the Russian Federation, offering students to master successive competencies in the development and engineering of a full technological cycle from the enrichment and purification of natural raw materials (chemistry and technology) to the creation of new alloys, semiconductor and superconducting materials (materials science). Their use in value-added end products (functional alloys, electronics, elastomers) is also in the process of study.

The Rare and Precious Metals Center is a scientific and technological student training ground created to implement a whole set of tasks:

to get immersed in industrial engineering;
to generate new and consolidate existing projects for the development of highly profitable technologies for the production of materials based on rare metals;
to improve existing technological processes and bring technology to modern cost levels.

Teams of specialist technologists are being trained who are ready to work in production and in research organizations.

Research areas of the Center:

Rare earth metals;
Precious metals;
Materials for electronics and machine tools;
Fillers for pharmaceuticals and elastomers;
Industrial Economics and Marketing.

The center is completely modernized and has the most modern technological equipment, including laboratories for sample preparation, enrichment of mineral raw materials, synthesis of pure substances; installations for the production of metals using hydro/pyrometallurgy and electrochemistry methods.

The format of the center’s activities is to create highly profitable technologies for the production of traditional and new materials, improve existing technological processes and bring the technology to a modern cost level.

Students adopt the best competencies of the Russian school of metallurgists and rare metal workers, which subsequently opens up career paths for graduates in all corporations producing rare and precious metals.