On May 16th and 17th, South Ural State University hosts an Open Forum on Ecology and Preservation of Water Bodies as part of the Ecology national project. This is a key industry event in the South Ural region, where opinion leaders, experts and innovators meet annually. The event included a traditional exhibition of scientific achievements by the university and partner enterprises in the field of environmental preservation.
The exhibition aims to strengthen business relations of all participants in the process of the environmentalization of industrial cities. The exhibit was attended by forum participants: heads of enterprises, specialists of municipal and water management services, environmental activists. The Governor of the Chelyabinsk Region Alexey Texler visited the stands with a special excursion.
"Certainly, an important and integral part of the eco-forum is the exhibition, where various achievements and innovations are presented," emphasized Alexey Texler. “Today we discussed the further development of the territory around the Chelyabinsk city dump. You know that today we get electricity from landfill gas, which we use for lighting and heating greenhouses, where we grow flowers for the improvement of the city. Now we plan to set up a sports area there. There is an idea to also use this relatively cheap energy to set up a snow-melting installation. Such an enterprise has a complex beneficial effect: a new development point is formed on the site of the former city dump, which opens up various opportunities. We include this idea in all environmental projects. And the task that I set for holding such forums is the exchange of opinions and ideas for new projects that we could implement in the Chelyabinsk Region. The uniqueness of this forum is that all environmental topics are discussed here: from clean air and clean water to waste management."
The main areas of the focus exhibition include: environmental monitoring; subsoil use; eco-industry; climate and carbon footprint; clean water; municipal and industrial waste; clean air; software; and environmental education.
SUSU developers presented eight unique inventions at the exhibition: a seawater desalination unit; printed electrodes (three-contact sensors) for express analysis of environmental pollution; a gas sensor based on quantum interferometry for monitoring toxic gases in the environment; a laboratory sample of a Zn-ion battery and its components; smart biodegradable biosensor films and biodegradable tableware; sorbents for water purification from natural eco-materials; an intelligent thermal and video system for operational monitoring of industrial emissions TVS "Ekomonitor"; and a solution for monitoring emissions of harmful substances from motor vehicles AIMS ECO SAAS.
The following partner organizations and enterprises also brought their exhibits to the exhibition at the university: BMT-Servis and UralSeptik companies, the developer of the NextGIS software, EcoDozor-74 volunteer association, the "Movement of the First" all-Russian movement of children and youth, ROST Innovation Centre, regional branches of the "Ecosystem" all-Russian environmental movement and the "Children's and Youth Social Initiatives" ANO "DRTs DIMSI" public organization, as well as Chelyabinsk State University.
"At today's exhibition, we are going to present a technology for cleaning water and surface runoff using the reverse osmosis method, and we will also present a modernized technology for utilizing solar gas that is generated in the body of a reclaimed landfill," shared Dariia Zvereva, Project Manager at OOO BMT-Servis. "We use the energy generated by the gas piston unit to grow plants in greenhouse conditions at the landfill for landscaping the city. We also have projects for the rehabilitation of the Miass River: we remove bottom sediments from it, clean it in order to return normal flora and fauna to the water area. We have been participating in the Ecology forum for several years now, thanks to which, among other things, our company successfully interacts with the Governments of both the Chelyabinsk Region and Moscow; and today we hope to establish new useful connections here."
At the stand of the Chelyabinsk regional branch of the "Children's and Youth Social Initiatives" ANO "DRTs DIMSI" all-Russian public organization an underwater drone for studying the bottom and coasts of water bodies for debris, as well as an echo sounder (a sonar that helps divers measure the depth of a water basin) were exhibited.
“We use these devices as part of the “Ecological Dive Landing of Ural Lakes” volunteer project,” said Director of the organization Nelly Bubenkova. “The project has been tested more than once not only in our region, but also in the Sverdlovsk Region, in the Krasnodar Region. Our trained volunteer divers clean the surface, bottom and banks of reservoirs from garbage. An underwater drone helps a specialist see the location of the garbage, an echo sounder, thanks to photo and video recording, allows us to make a whole depth map to assess the scale of the upcoming work. We hope that this season we will be approved for another cleaning of Lake Turgoyak, in 2021 we lifted twenty eight BelAZ tires from its bottom − this is forty tons of garbage.”
The Ecology 2025 forum will end on May 17th under the auspices of the “I Choose Clean Air” all-Russian campaign, a sports and mass event with a race for everyone, at the stadium named after E. Elesina.