Prof. Alexander Malkin

Prof. Dr. Alexander Ya. Malkin is an elected fellow of the Society of Rheology (USA). He made a fundamental input into understanding the extension of polymer melts and solutions and found the criteria of limiting states by extension (the most cited publication). He was the first to develop rheokinetics (changes in rheological properties of substances during polymerization and chemical transformation processes) as an independent branch of polymer rheology. He started his scientific career by entering the laboratory of polymer rheology of the Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis of the Academy of Sciences as a Ph.D. student in late 1962 under the supervision of Professor G. V. Vinogradov. One of his first outstanding accomplishments was the concept of the flow-to-rubbery transition in strong flows of viscoelastic polymeric fluids. His investigations of multi-component systems developed the understanding of yielding and for the first time demonstrated the time-dependent and thixotropic nature of the yield stress as well as the absence of the limiting Newtonian flow below the yield stress. His current field of investigation is related to the problem of heavy oil transportation and the search for ways to reduce its cost-effective high viscosity. In particular, he tackles this problem through directed emulsification in water.