History of the Department of Chemistry
The Department of Chemistry (KCH), like the Faculty of Metallurgy, also claims to the spiritual legacy of the Mining Academy, founded by the Hungarian monarch Maria Theresa in 1762 in Banská Štiavnica. The first chair of this academy was the KCH and the first lecture was given by Professor of Chemistry and Mineralogy Nicholas Joseph Jacquen in 1764. History repeated itself when the Technical University of Košice was founded in 1952 and one of its founding faculties was the Faculty of Metallurgy with the Department of Chemistry and the Department of Metallurgy. From the beginning, practically until now, KCH has been providing teaching of most chemical disciplines at several faculties of TU Košice.
During its existence, KCH has undergone several significant changes. In 1966 it was divided into the Department of Analytical Chemistry, which was a joint department with the Faculty of Natural Sciences of the University of Applied Sciences in Košice, and the Department of Chemical Foundations of Metallurgy. Both departments were again integrated into a single KCH in 1973, with some of the staff becoming part of the Faculty of Natural Sciences, but close cooperation with today's Department of Analytical Chemistry of the Institute of Chemical Sciences of the Faculty of Physical Sciences of the University of Applied Sciences of the Jagiellonian University continues. In 2003, the Department of Ceramics was separated from the KCH and became the basis of the Department of Ceramics of the Faculty of Metallurgy.
KCH has been oriented, over its almost 60-year history, towards the main chemical research topics. Among the most important are, in addition to the areas of chemical metallurgy (and in the past also ceramic materials), the field of environmentally oriented analytical chemistry and electrochemistry, but also chemometrics, where an important role is played by the internationally recognized Košice Spectroscopic School, founded by the long-time head of KCH - prof. Ing. Mikuláš Matherny, DrSc., professor emeritus of TU. One of the notable activities of the mentioned "school" is the establishment of the tradition of spectrochemical seminars since 1970. These have gradually grown since 1996 into the Slovak Spectroscopic Conference with international participation. In 1980, 1985, 1990 and 1996, the Department also organised distinguished conferences under the title "Identification Methods in Metallurgy".
In 1985, the success of the KCH was the assignment to coordinate the main task of the SPZV III-1-7 "Physico-chemical foundations of production and processing of non-ferrous metals". At the same time, a joint research institute "Laboratory of Chemistry of Rare Elements of the Academy of Sciences and the University of Science and Technology" was established. The solution of these research tasks was carried out during five years and the coordinator of the task, as well as the head of this workplace was prof. Ing. Mikuláš Matherny, DrSc.
Since 1990, KCH staff have been involved in several VEGA and APVV projects focused on:
- optimization of analytical methods for determination of metallic elements in water, sediments, soil and gravity dust fallout,
- electrochemical monitoring of the reactivity of natural and laboratory prepared particulate matter and their use for the elimination of pollutants in environmental samples,
- thermodynamics of phase transitions of binary and polycomponent systems,
- the kinetics of chemical dissolution of multicomponent oxides in relation to the possibility of obtaining pure compounds from secondary raw materials and wastes.
The result of these activities are scientific papers and numerous reviews in renowned journals, as well as international cooperation, implemented in several Tempus, DAAD and MVTS projects.
List of Heads of the Department of Chemistry since its establishment:
- doc. Ing. Valentín Vasiliev (1952 - 53)
- prof. Dr. Ing. Bedřich Zimmermann (1953 - 58)
- doc. Dr. Karel Dvořák (1958 - 59)
- doc. RNDr. PhDr. Jaromír Jalůvka, CSc. (1959 - 62)
- prof. Ing. Mikuláš Matherny, DrSc. (1962 - 66)
After the division of KCH (1966) he was the head of the Department of Analytical Chemistry
- prof. Ing. Mikuláš Matherny, DrSc. (1966 - 73)
and Head of the Department of Chemical Foundations of Metallurgy
- prof. Ing. František Sehnálek, CSc. (1966 - 70)
- doc. Ing. Jaroslav Jagoš, CSc. (1970 - 73)
After the reunification of the department (1973), its head became
- doc. RNDr. PhDr. Jaromír Jalůvka, CSc., (1973 - 82)
- prof. Ing. Mikuláš Matherny, DrSc. (1982 - 89)
- prof. Ing. Karol Flórián, DrSc. (1989 - 90)
- doc. Ing. Tarzícius Kuffa, CSc. (1990 - 2003)
- prof. Ing. Karol Flórián, DrSc. (2003 - 10)
- prof. Ing. Pavel Puliš, CSc. (2010 - 2015)
- doc. RNDr. Ľubomír Pikna, PhD. (2015 - 2016)