Professor of the chair “Microelectronics and biomedical equipment” of NPUA, Doctor of Technical Sciences Gagik Shmavonyan, within the frames of Erasmus+ European international mobility program traveled to Greece, Technical University of Crete. NPUA Professor lectured for 4th year students and post-graduates of the Department of “Chemistry and Environmental Engineering” on the topic “Leading materials – graphene and two-dimensional atomic materials and structures”.
The schedule of the lectures was coordinated by the Erasmus+ program coordinator of the Technical University of Crete Marcos Ntukakis and Professor of the Department of “Chemistry and Environmental Engineering” Petros Gikas. The lectures for the final year students and post-graduate students were based on the materials of the co-authored section on “Nano spectroscopy of graphene and other two-dimensional materials” by Shmavonyan in the three volume English language textbook “Optical Nano Spectroscopy” published by German De Gruyter publishing house.
The textbook also comprises the technology of “Flat rubbing” and “Circular rubbing” recently co-authored by Professor Gagik Shmavonyan on graphene and 2D materials.
High quality and ecologically clean graphene sheets and powder obtained by unique technology is the cheapest and short-term (60 seconds), which are applied both in Armenia and in foreign countries such as France, Germany, Spain, Greece and Belgium.
Graphene and other 2D materials were obtained in Armenia for the first time in 2013 at NPUA by non-traditional technology “Flat rubbing” for which the supervisor of “NanoHay” team of the university, Professor Gagik Shmavonyan and team coordinator, lecturer of the chair of Foreign Languages Gayane Shmavonyan in 2015, in the innovation competition “UNIDO Global CleanTech Open” of UNO clean technologies were recognized as the national winner and in Silicon Valley, in San Francisco, they were awarded the prize “Oscar of Clean Technologies” (NPUA newsletter, December 2015). Gagik Shmavonyan’s scientific group managed to design and prepare the prototype equipment of graphene and 2D materials that has no similar device in the world on the basis of “Flat rubbing” technology. Currently, the latter one is in the process of improvement and in the laboratory “Engineering of 2D materials and nano technology innovation” headed by Gagik Shmavonyan established in 2020, within the frames of Philip Morris organization, production of graphene and other 2D materials mass production (commercialization) will be possible to organize in case of its successful completion and in case of technology – its commercialization.
Graphene and 2D materials obtained by “flat rubbing” technology are successfully used in foreign countries in electronics and biomedicine.
As a result of the business visit, promising results were achieved. Professor Shmavonyan met the leadership of the Technical University of Crete, Rector, Professor Ivan Diamadopullas, as well as vice-rector for administrative, academic affairs and studies, Professor Mikhail Lagudakis initiated by them.
During the meetings, cooperation between NPUA and Technical University of Crete was discussed as well as perspectives to start educational and scientific cooperation between NPUA and Hellenic Mediterranean University were discussed. Mutual visits of leadership of both universities were approved in order to strengthen and deepen the cooperation between the two universities.
Vice-rector Mikhail Lagudakis advised him to meet Professor of the Technical University of Crete Nikos Kekukulatakis. During the meeting, perspectives to start scientific cooperation between the scientific groups of the two universities were discussed that will aim to apply the graphene sheets and powder obtained by Flat Rubbing technology in the laboratory headed by Professor Kekukulatakis in order to clean the organic materials.
Currently, for the cleaning of organic materials, they use graphene oxide being not high quality and not ecologically clean method or they use the expensive graphene oxide acquired from China. In the result of the meeting, they decided to use graphene instead of not high quality graphene oxide in order to increase the efficiency of the cleaning. The expected results can become the start of the new cooperation.
Vice-rector for Research and Lifelong Education Mikhail Zervaisi advised to start cooperation with the scientific group headed by Gagik Shmavonyan at NPUA and the scientific group of Professor Dimitris Angelakis, head of the research team of “Nano materials for modern equipment” of the Institute of Modern Technology of Hellenic Mediterranean University. The future scientific cooperation will continue and the problems will be clarified via online platform Zoom and by means of email communication.
I discussed the possibility of close scientific and educational cooperation between the two universities with the Professor of the Department “Chemistry and Environmental Engineering” Petros Gikas. Within the frames of Erasmus+ program, Petros Gikas together with his partner will visit NPUA next year for the deepening of cooperation between the two universities.
We agreed to experiment high quality graphene sheets and powder obtained rather cheaply by the Flat rubbing technology in laboratory headed by him and in pump stations for the cleaning of water. Currently they do not use modern technology to clean the water that should be modernized. We agreed to find efficient ways to solve that problem and discuss possibilities of its implementation. The expected results can lead to new cooperation.
Coordinator of Erasmus+ program Marcos Ntukakis for the continuation of scientific cooperation suggested expanding the cooperation of NPUA with one of more than 20 institutions that cooperate with Technical University of Crete, such as University of Waterloo (Canada), Jordan University of Science and Technology, University of Chile, National Institute of Technology (Jamshedpur, India), Oakland University (New Zealand), Rochester Institute of Technology (USA), Technion Institute of Technology (Haifa, Israel), Toyama Prefectural University (Japan), the University of Republic (Uruguay), Wright State University (USA) to find some new applications for the flat rubbing technology.
Professors Shmavonyan and Gikas will refer to the institutions interested in it after reaching the agreement with the leadership of NPUA.
They agreed on one more question with Professor Gikas, to expand the sphere of cooperation in the form of establishing and deepening of the academic cooperation and exchange between Greek and Armenian scientists.
The organizer of the first international conference “Stable chemical and environmental engineering”, Professor Gikas invited Gagik Shmavonyan and NPUA employees to participate in the conference to be held in Retimno on Crete Island, Greece, on August 31-September 4, 2022.
Prerequisites for the implementation of scientific research were established during the business trip as well as preliminary agreements were made to apply for international grants, carry out joint supervision of post-graduate or researchers’ works and jointly apply the results of the scientific works.
After finalization of the results, it is expected to publish joint scientific papers and conference proceedings with Greek colleagues. This business trip not only encouraged the establishment of new cooperation but the expansion of utilization of 2D materials obtained by Flat rubbing technology.
