Department of Ecology and Environmental Technologies

The Department of Ecology and Environmental Protection Technologies is the faculty’s primary structural unit.

The Department of Ecology and Environmental Protection Technologies was established on the basis of the Department of Occupational Safety, which has been in operation since 1972. As environmental courses were developed and refined, the department changed its name several times: “Occupational Safety” (1972–1988), “Occupational Safety and Environmental Protection” (1988–1990), “Ecology and Chemistry” (1991–1993), “Ecology” (1993–2011), “Environmental Safety” (2011–2013), “Environmental Safety and Occupational Safety” (2013–2017), “Ecology and Environmental Protection Technologies” (since 2017).

The first head of the Department of Occupational Safety was Associate ProfessorYuriy Serhiyovych Ryske, and the department’s staff included Associate Professor V.I. Koval, Assistant T.O. Golubchenko, Assistant A.Yu. Lisny, Senior Laboratory Assistant N.F. Lenkovets, and Laboratory Assistant A.V. Dolmatnya. During this period, the department’s material and technical infrastructure began to take shape, and the occupational safety laboratory was established.

From 1976 to 1987,Vladlen Mykolayovych Matvienko served as the head of the Department of Occupational Safety. During this time, the department’s material and technical resources expanded, and the “Collection of Laboratory and Practical Work on Occupational Safety” was developed and published several times, along with methodological guidelines for completing the “Occupational Safety” section in thesis projects.

In 1987, with the arrival of the new department chair—Valery Panteleevich Voloshin, Candidate of Technical Sciences and Associate Professor—preparations began for the launch of an environmental specialization and for the department to become a degree-granting unit. This, in turn, led to a change in the department’s name. In 1988, the department was renamed “Occupational Safety and Environmental Protection.” Starting in 1989, in collaboration with the Department of Marine Power Plants, the department’s faculty began graduating engineers with a specialization in “Environmental Protection Systems for Marine Power Plants” within the “Marine Power Plants” major. The department became a degree-granting unit, which provided a real opportunity to launch an environmental studies major.

From 1990 to 1994, the department was headed by Dr.Igor Mikhailovich Varshubsky, Doctor of Technical Sciences and Professor. Under his leadership, a new phase of the department’s development began. In 1993, the department launched the “Environmental Protection” program. To strengthen its material resources, the department was merged with the Department of Chemistry in 1991, after which it became known as the Department of Ecology and Chemistry. In mid-1993, due to the reorganization of the institute’s structural units, the department was again split into the Department of Ecology and the Department of Chemistry.

In April 1994, Dr.Sergey Sergeyevich Ryzhkov, Doctor of Technical Sciences and Professor, became the head of the Department of Ecology. During this period, the department underwent rapid development and played an active role in addressing scientific and practical issues in the shipbuilding industry. On the initiative of Professor S.S. Ryzhkov and Associate Professor Y.M. Kharitonov, and with the support of UDMTU Rector Professor G.F. Romanovsky, the International Scientific and Technical Conference “Problems of Energy Conservation and Ecology in Shipbuilding” was launched. The first such conference was held in September 1996.
The department’s primary research focus is the development of environmental and energy-saving technologies. Thus, S.S. Ryzhkov established a scientific school in environmental engineering and a new research direction focused on the purification and utilization of gaseous and liquid emissions by harnessing the energy potential of the emissions themselves, utilizing jet, two-phase dispersed, and detachment flows, as well as the forces of turbo- and thermophoresis, particle coagulation during flow around obstacles and in channels. Based on this research direction, a complete range of jet oil separators for gas turbine engines has been developed. The inventions, protected by patents and copyright certificates, have been widely implemented at enterprises in the CIS countries, India, and China.

For the scientific project “Development of Universal Transport Vessels and Ocean Engineering Equipment,” a research group led by Professor S.S. Ryzhkov (V.S. Blintsov, G.V., Zhukov Yu.D., Kvasnitsky V.F., Koshkin K.V., Krivtsun I.V., Nekrasov V.O., Sevryukov V.V., Solonichenko Yu.V.) was awarded the 2011 State Prize of Ukraine in Science and Technology.

Professor S.S. Ryzhkov made every effort to attract highly qualified researchers in the field of ecology to ensure high-quality training of specialists in the field of “Ecology and Environmental Protection.” He devoted significant attention to the material, technical, and methodological support of the educational process and the department’s research activities, to establishing ties with scientific organizations—including at the international level—and to enhancing the department’s prestige.