Professor at the Physics Institute Gleb Wataghin (IFGW) at Unicamp Pascoal Pagliuso won, on Tuesday (26), the 8th National Innovation Award in the Medium Company Innovative Researcher category. He was nominated for his leadership in leading research into the development of liquid argon purification technologies that will be used in the LBNF/Dune Project (Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility e Deep Underground Neutrino Facility, in English), an initiative by Fermilab, a research center linked to the United States Department of Energy, which will build a large neutrino detector at a depth of 1,4 meters in the state of South Dakota.
"I am immensely grateful for this award on behalf of a talented team, of more than 30 researchers from seven Brazilian universities, led by Unicamp, and more than 20 companies in the country", celebrated Pagliuso at the award ceremony, which is an initiative of Mobilização Empresarial para Innovation (MEI), carried out by the National Confederation of Industry (CNI) and the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Sebrae). In this edition, more than 3 thousand candidates competed for the award. "I hope to count on the encouragement of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation and Finep, so that Brazil continues to be a protagonist in one of the most important experiments today", he highlighted.
This was the first time that the award had a category to reward researchers who work with innovative companies. Pagliuso was nominated by Akaer, an award-winning company in the Innovation Management - Medium Companies category. A partner in LBNF/Dune, Akaer will be responsible for large-scale production and transport logistics of components developed in Brazil for installation in the detector. "The award further reinforces the need to continue the project and will certainly help in its implementation, placing Brazil in the showcase of innovation for many years to come", he commented.
Argon purification
Unicamp's participation in the development of the LBNF/Dune Project focuses on the development and scale production of equipment used to purify liquid argon. The technology used in this process was developed in the IFGW laboratories, including the improvement of inputs used for filtering liquid argon, an essential step for the detection of neutrinos and for the investigation of new subatomic phenomena and their role in the formation of the universe.
LBNF/Dune consists of installing a large neutrino detector in Leads, South Dakota, at a depth of 1,4 meters, to identify neutrinos emitted by a beam generated by a unit installed at Fermilab headquarters, in city of Batava, in Illinois, located at a distance of 1,3 kilometers.
The neutrino detector in South Dakota will cover an underground area equivalent to eight football fields, formed by three caves. Equipment to detect particles will be installed in two of them. A third, central cave will have equipment for purifying, circulating and condensing argon, a noble gas used in liquid form for experiments. When fully operational, the Dune facilities will use around 70 tons of liquid argon.
Another contribution from the University is the presence of the X-Arapuca in the detector, a device responsible for identifying the neutrino by capturing the light emitted from the interaction of the neutrino with the argon in the tanks. The expectation is that 1.500 of these devices will be installed on Dune. The X-Arapuca technology was developed based on research carried out by professors Ettore Segreto and Ana Amélia Machado, from IFGW.
"It was an excellent recognition for our group, it shows the ability of academia to join together with companies to achieve great things and we mark the history of Physics forever. If we are successful, we will be able to know, for example, how the universe came about. This will mark humanity", emphasizes Ettore Segreto.
Daughter company
MatchIT, a daughter company hosted at Unicamp's Scientific and Technological Park, was a finalist in the small business category. The co-founder of the spin-off company of the Instituto de Biologia Ecra Biotech, Robson Tramontina, was also a finalist in the innovative researchers in small business category.
Check out the list of all the award finalists.
Read more:
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