Winner. Scientist of the Year 2021

Barnasan Purevsuren

Academic title, degree: Academician, Doctor of Chemistry Sciences, Professor
Fields of science: Synthesis of polymers and chemical modification of biopolymers
Research interest: Synthesis of polymers and modification of biopolymers; chemistry and technology of coal
Institution: Laboratory of Coal Chemistry and Technology of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences
Position: Leading Scientific Researcher
Country: Mongolia

Academician, Doctor (Ph.D. & Sc.D.), Professor Barnasan Purevsuren is one of the leading scientists of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in the field of synthesis of polymers and chemical modification of biopolymers.

Barnasan Purevsuren was born in the village “Zag” of “Bayankhogor” province, Mongolia, on October 3, 1953. He had graduated secondary school in “Jargalant” village of “Bayankhongor” province in 1973 and received high education at the University of Chemical Technology, Sofia, Bulgaria in 1979, specializing in engineer-chemist of chemistry and synthesis of polymers.

After his graduation in Bulgaria, he started to work as a young scientific researcher in the Institute of Chemistry of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences in 1979. Since 1979, he had worked 42 years as a researcher, Senior, and Leading Scientific Researcher, until nowadays.

In 1987, at the same University in Bulgaria, Barnasan Purevsuren defended his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry on “Synthesis of new thermostable epoxy resins”, and in 2000, the Doctor of Chemistry Sciences (Sc.D.) degree on “Synthesis of some new polymers and chemical modification of casein, characterization, and application” in the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Mongolia.

Since establishing the University of Ulaanbaatar in 1992, Barnasan Purevsuren has been working as a teacher, Associated Professor (from 1998), and Professor (from 2001).

During the last decade, Professor Purevsuren has been working on pyrolysis of some organic raw materials, including different rank coals, oil shale, wood waste, animal bone, cedar shell, polypropylene waste, milk casein, and characterization of obtained hard residue (solid product), tar and pyrolytic water (condensed liquid product) and gas (non-condensed gas product) after pyrolysis. It is necessary to emphasize that the pyrolysis of animal bone, casein, and cedar shell was investigated first time by him and his team. He obtained hard residues with porosity structure and tars with different chemical compositions than tars from coal, oil shale, and wood. Also, the curing ability of pyrolysis tars of organic raw materials for epoxy resin has been investigated for the first time. These experiments showed that only tar of milk casein has the highest (95,0%), tar of animal bone has certain (18,70%), and tars of all other organic raw materials have no curing ability for epoxy resin. The curing ability of tars from different organic raw materials depends on the nitrogen content (N-containing functional groups in tar) of tars.

Professor Purevsuren is also working on the chemical modification of casein. He developed and put into practice several technologies and standards for producing powdered and liquid casein glues and casein-humic dyes.

Based on the results of his research work, 184 scientific papers were published (51 articles in foreign journals); 2 dissertations; 13 monographs; 15 patents registered (3 of them with Bulgarian scientists); 152 presentations were presented at scientific conferences (including 64 at international conferences and workshops); 15 technologies and 5 national standards have been developed.

Professor Purevsuren is a member of the Asia-Pacific Academy of Materials (from 2008) and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences (from 2011).

Professor Barnasan Purevsuren and his team for the first time synthesized five new epoxy resins with higher thermal stability and cis-isotactic 1,4-polypentadiene capable to form a single crystal and tailored rigid-flexible diblock copolymers prepared by condensation of benzyl-terminated poly(p-benzamide) and aniline-terminated poly(m-phenylene isophthalamide) capable to form a liquid crystal. The molecular structures of these polymers were confirmed by using modern spectrometric instruments, including IR, 1H, and 13C NMR. The supramolecular crystalline structure of cis-isotactic 1,4-polypentadiene and supramolecular liquid crystalline structure of diblock copolymers of benzyl-terminated poly(p-benzamide) and aniline-terminated poly(m-phenylene isophthalamide) have been determined.

Recently, Prof. Dr. Purevsuren is working on the pyrolysis of some organic raw materials, including different rank coals, oil shale, wood, plastic waste, animal bone, cedar shell, and milk casein and characterization of obtained solid, condensed liquid (tar) and gas products. As a result of pyrolysis of animal bone and milk casein first time have been received and characterized a carbonized hard product with high developed porosity structure and liquid tar product with specific chemical composition utterly different than that of coal, oil shale, wood, and plastic. As a result of chemical modification of biopolymer- casein has been worked out technologies for producing powder and liquid casein glues, water-soluble dye, curing agents for epoxy resins, and adsorbent material. It is necessary to emphasize that papers of pyrolysis and characterization of hard and tar products of casein and animal bone published in western scientific journals cited as main scientific papers in online Wikipedia Encyclopedia.

Citations of scientific works of Professor Purevsuren in foreign journals - 229, h-index-10; i10-index-10 (from Google Scholar B.Purevsuren).

Under the supervision of Prof. B. Purevsuren, 1 D.Sc. dissertation, 3 Ph.D. dissertations, 14 Magister’s, and 16 Bachelor’s degree theses were defended.

Professor Barnasan Purevsuren has worked in the laboratories of polymer synthesis of the University of Milan, Roma, and Genoa, Italy; Max Planck Institute of Coal Research in Muelheim an der Ruhr, and Institute of Geology and Geochemistry of Petroleum and Coal, University of Aachen, Germany; Chemical Engineering Department of Imperial College of Science, Technology, and Medicine, University of London, UK; National Ilan University of Taiwan, among others.