Many educational institutions have been struggling with the pandemic conditions since March 2020. At LUM GmbH, we value education as one of the highest assets and always ensure that our internship programs are as practically relevant as possible. Our Ukrainian exchange student Kateryna Borysova just successfully completed her 3-months internship in the application laboratory.
Every year, the GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit / German Society for International Cooperation) awards scholarships to promising students from Eastern Europe, giving them the opportunity to gain practical work experience in German technology companies. As a permanent partner, LUM accepts at least one of these students annually.
Ms. Borysova gained practical experience in working with the analytical instruments LUMiSizer®, LUMiReader®PSA and the LUMiReader®X-Ray. She mainly performed particle characterization-, particle concentration-, particle velocity-, sedimentation time- and physical stability evaluation measurements on customer samples, e.g. polystyrene, lipofundin and carbon black dispersions, with the analysis software SEPView®. SEPView® is LUM’s unique proprietary analysis software that enables the evaluation and management of complex measurement data from in-house instruments.
Recently, Ms. Borysova presented her internship learnings in front of her supervisors and interested colleagues at LUM. She presented her comparative measurements with several dispersions incorporating various kinds of particles – from argentum (silver) to zinc oxide. Silver particles find more and more use in conductive inkjet inks which is required, for example, for the manufacture of miniature electronics. Zinc oxide on the other hand is classically used in the manufacture of pharmaceutical and cosmetic products.
Last but not least, Ms. Borysova made use of a new type of sector-shaped cell for advanced analytical centrifugation experiments.
We are proud to have provided Ms. Borysova – despite the pandemic – with a hands-on internship and hope the knowledge she gained at LUM will pave her way for a successful career in research or industry.