Igor Nikolaevich Plaksin

Born Sept 25 (Oct. 8), 1900, in Ufa; died Mar. 15, 1967, in Moscow. Soviet scientist in the fields of metallurgy and mining. Corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1946). Member of the CPSU from 1945.

After graduating from the Far East University in 1926, Plak-sin worked in N. S. Kurnakov’s laboratory at the Chemical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (Leningrad). From 1928 to 1930 he worked at the Moscow Academy of Mines. Beginning in 1930 he worked at the Moscow Institute of Nonferrous Metals and Gold, where he headed the subdepartment of the metallurgy of noble metals and later became the institute’s deputy director. From 1941 to 1943, he also was deputy director of the All-Union Institute of the Mechanical Processing and Concentration of Ores; beginning in 1944 he was head of the section of the concentration of minerals at the Mining Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Plaksin’s principal studies were devoted to the theory and technology of hydrometallurgical processes, the concentration of minerals, and the history of metallurgy. Plaksin created the modern scientific foundations of the hydrometallurgy and extraction of noble metals from ores, theoretically substantiated the process of amalgamation, and proposed an efficient method for increasing the productivity of the cyanide process.

A recipient of the State Prize of the USSR (1951, 1952), Plaksin was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, and various medals.