National University of Science and Technology MISiS, Moscow, Russian Federation:

Nikitina I. M., Candidate of Engineering Sciences, Leading Engineer
Epshtein S. A., Doctor of Engineering Sciences, Head of Laboratory of Physics and Chemistry of Coals, apshtein@yandex.ru
Fomenko N. A., Engineer
Kossovich E. L., Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Senior researcher, Ph.D.

Humic acids of solid fossil fuels are very perspective for application in many areas of mining, and also for derivation of advanced technology products for agriculture, production, medicine, etc. Ability of humic acids to bind toxic elements (including heavy metals and radioactive elemens) contained in technogenic soils and waters of mining companies and plants allow them to be used in the area of environment protection and reclamation. Drilling fluids with humic substances as polymeric fillers have rheological properties close to properties of systems that are used for water, oil and gas wells horizontal and deep drilling. Moreover, such solutions allow to reduce the unfavorable effects at the environment. In agriculture, humic acids are primarily used as potassium, calcium and sodium humates as additives for enhancement of plants growth and crop yield enhancers. In construction, humic acids and their derivatives could be used as fillers for improving of cement and concrete Humic acids could find a potentially wide application in the area of medicine. This is reasoned by a number of unique properties such as inflammatory and antiviral ones, sorption, etc. Perspective direction of humic acids in medicine is targeted drug delivery. Some researchers showed that humic acids could suppress growth of cancer cells. In veterinary, humic acids and their derivatives are used as nutrition additives that help to enhance animals’ immune system and activate metabolism along with increase of stress resistance. However currently there exist no sufficient and reliable information on features of humic acids structure and properties with respect to their origin. This considerably complicates humic acids and their derivatives wide utilization in Technology and environment protection. Authors of this paper believe that the solution of such problem could be found by development of humic acids classification based on revealing the most relevant characteristics responsible for humic acids behavior in different processes.

This work was performed within the framework of "Conducting research work (basic research, applied research and experimental development)" task # 2014/113 to provide state-supported research in the field of scientific activities of the base part of the state task 495 "Structure and properties of humic acids within solid fossil fuels of various origins and metamorphism".

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