Every year, Gazprom Neft presents the League of Universities Award for the best practices in promoting innovative industries and attracting young specialists to science and engineering. This year’s shortlist featured 55 projects by scientists from 47 Russian and international universities.
Five universities became the winners of the 2025 League of Universities Award. ITMO University was ranked best in the Scientific Response category for Smart Membrane – a cutting-edge method of lithium extraction. The project’s developers are experts from ITMO’s Laboratory of Applied Materials for the Energy Sector and were supported in their project by Gazprom Neft. Smart Membrane is an ion-based membrane designed to selectively extract lithium from associated water (a by-product of oil extraction – Ed.) from oil and gas condensate fields. After passing through the membrane, the brine can be used to produce high-purity (above 97%) lithium salts – a valuable raw material for lithium-ion batteries. The development process took two years.
“Russia has significant deposits of lithium in oil and gas field brines; however, until now, we had no domestic technologies capable of extracting lithium salts with purity of over 97%. Our solution involves membranes that are modified with crown ethers and metal-organic frameworks.This material has small openings that are able to let small lithium ions pass through while blocking larger ions of sodium, magnesium, calcium, potassium, and other metals in the fluid. These membranes serve as ion sieves for lithium, which allows for high-purity salts. Our technology makes it possible to extract lithium from previously unused sources, thus not only reducing this metal’s deficit on the world market, but also paving new ground for natural resource processing in Russia,” explains Mariia Moshkova, a researcher at ITMO’s Laboratory of Applied Materials for the Energy Sector.
In Ms. Moshkova’s view, the award not only indicates academic recognition; it’ll also help strengthen ties between university science and business. Collaborations of this sort are beneficial in introducing scientific developments into the industry, attracting new investors, and developing innovative competencies in students and young researchers. The team has already tested the method in the laboratory; their next step is to move on to larger-scale experiments and commercialize their technology.
The award was also presented to teams from St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University “LETI” (for the opening of a new educational and scientific laboratory) and Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (for the launch of an educational program in innovative engineering and 3D printing). Among other winners were researchers from St. Petersburg University of Economics and the National Research Nuclear University MEPhI who organized scientific communities and continuous development programs in short-staffed specializations of the oil and gas industry.
