INCT 2014: Advanced Analytical Technologies

Abstract

This proposal aims to provide the consolidation and continuity of the National Institute for Advanced Analytical Science and Technology (INCTAA), choose activities has resulted in relevant achievements for the analytical science and technology, both in national and International levels, as predicted by the institute mission. The analytical and science technology plays a fundamental role in the social and economical development of any country because it produces the knowledge and tools enabling the acquisition of quantitative and qualitative information used by diverse areas related to, among others, the determination of quality and traceability of agro products, to environmental diagnostic, to forensic cases elucidation and support, and to the development of analytical instrumentation. The state-of-the art in the field is evidently multidisciplinary, requiring the know-how of electronics, computation, chemistry, mathematical tools, used for data treatment of multivariate data, and information coming from the specific area to which the problem to be solved belongs. Therefore, the analytical science and technology is involved to solve problems and contemplate demands of the society in general. In this new stage, the INCTAA will act in for principal research lines of scientific and technological development which are all relevant to find the solution for real Brazilian problems: analytical instrumentation, valorization of agricultural and livestock farming products, environmental, and forensic. The analytical instrumentation line, as a strengthen line of the INCTAA, is related to the development and use of new spectrophotometric instruments based on lasers, on the use of alternative sources of electromagnetic radiation to produce portable instruments, to develop process and bench instruments, required to in field monitoring of agro products in points of commercialization, and in the national industries. Presently, instrumentation is the most fundamental characteristic of the science and analytical technology. The line associated to valorization of agricultural products aims to develop the synergic research among several researcher groups associated to the INCTAA, and with a relevant role of the international collaborators, directed to the production of analytical methods and protocols to access the quality and traceability of agro products. This research line is externally relevant to keep and to expand the external markets to the Brazilian agro products. The Environmental line is the most successful one of the INCTAA, considering the relevance of the achieved results and the effective of the network collaboration found during the present term of the INCTAA project, which will finish in the beginning of 2015. In the new proposal, the institute will foster its expertise to expand the study on emerging contaminants, diagnosing the present national situation and identifying and prioritizing the emergent contaminants in the Brazilian scenario. In this way, public politics actions can be established to consolidate the normalization on the presence of such compounds. The information generated by this action will effectively guide the INCTAA researchers to develop new processes to mitigate these contaminants. The Forensic, also routinely developed by the INCTAA, airs to propose new methods based in modern analytical techniques, such as LlBS (Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy), Terahertz Spectroscopy, and Hiperspectral lmaging. These methods will supply an entire arsenal of tools helping the investigative police to act in a more secure and less subjective way when analyzing crime evidences, producing more sustainable results, and contributing to the public national security. The action of the INCTAA in these four research lines means that its results are of the interest of at least four thematic areas induced by this call of proposals: agriculture, public security, and analytical technologies and mitigation of climatic changes, although the proposal form made available by CNPq allows to select only one theme. In function of this limitation, the INCTAA is electing the environmental technologies as one of its principal fields of work in the present proposal. Seventy (70) researchers distributed over thirty three (33) institutions spread from the northeast to south of Brazil, and twenty (21) international collaborators are attending this new proposal for the INCTM In addition, 14 international institutions with which the INCTAA maintain collaborative programs, serve to attest the institute internationalization. The individual expertise included by the group of researchers of the INCTAA is its major good. The institute mission is to promote the network and synergic actuation of the group to achieve solutions for the urgent problems of Brazil, demanded by diverse sectors to which its research lines are connected. The INCTAA will be managed and will act in the same ways it succeeds during its implantation stage. Its modus operating presents, as main characteristic, the effective action of the network through the insertion of the knowledge retained by the researchers of the INCTAA and their groups, to achieve solutions for several relevant problems found in the present national scientific and technological scenario. The INCTAA is structured, as specified in its organogram, attributing functions to several directories and to its members, requested to carry out activities and tasks to facilitate the achievement of the institute mission. The institute composition includes researches and - professionals from the public and productive sectors such as the Federal Police, EMBRAPA, BARSKEM and GRANBIO. The INCTAA also proposes the continuity of actions aiming at to divulge the science and technology in several educational levels, promoting the formation of qualified professionals principally in the post-graduation and post-doctoral levels, without neglecting the fundamental and medium levels. (AU)