Institute of Inorganic Chemistry Slovak Academy of Sciences (IIC SAS; Ústav anorganickej chémie Slovenskej akadémie vied) belongs to Scientific Section 2, Biological and Chemical Sciences of Slovak Academy of Sciences.
Institute of Inorganic Chemistry was founded in November 1952 as Commission of Inorganic chemistry by Board of Commissioners. Later, on 30 November 1953, the name was changed to Laboratory of Inorganic chemistry. The laboratory became a part of Institute of Chemical technology of Organic Compounds on 1 January 1955. Independent Institute of Inorganic Chemistry was founded on 1 January 1960 by the decision of the presidium of SAS. The institute became member of Scientific Collegium of Chemistry SAS and Scientific Collegium of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry CSAS from 1 January 1962 until 31 March 1990. The institute has become the individual part of Slovak Academy of Sciencies since 1 April 1990.
The number of employees has changed considerably: from 7 in 1953, through 36 in 1958, 1965 – 70, 1970 – 100 and in 1980 103 employees worked for the institute. The number decreased slightly to 95 in 2014.
Initially, the research was focused on industrial demands, mainly on the aluminium production and the processing of raw inorganic materials; i. e. bentonites, refractory materials, cements, etc.
The research is currently concentrated on studying:
relations between composition, properties, and structure of inorganic materials, e. g. progressive ceramics, molten systems, and clay minerals and its modified formsthe thermodynamics of multicomponent systemsthe chemical reactions occurring in inorganic systems, including the phase boundariesthe development and application of theoretical and experimental methods for structure determination and properties of matter.The institute is divided into 5 research departments.
Head: prof. RNDr. Pavol Šajgalík, DrSc.research is focused on the relations between mechanical properties and microstructure of oxide or non-oxide ceramic nanocomposites, etc.preparation of new types of composites (ceramic composites with high electrical and/or thermal conductivity, corrosion and oxidation resistant materials, luminescent materials, etc.).source
Head: RNDr. Peter Komadel, DrSc.the studies of the properties, mineralogical and chemical composition of the fine fractions of raw materials – bentonites – the clays containing dominantly montmorillonite or other minerals of the smectite groupchemical modifications and partial dissolution of montmorillonites have been studied by mainly spectroscopic methodsnovel hybrid materials based on cationic dyes and clay minerals exhibit many interesting properties, such as excitation energy transfer, photosensitization, changes of the energy of absorbed and emitted light, optical anisotropy, etc.source
Head: doc. Ing. Miroslav Boča, DrSc.the research is aimed to physico-chemical properties of molten salts systemsin order to understand better the relations between the properties, the composition, and the structure of inorganic melts, several parameters are studied, i. e. density, viscosity, electric conductivity, phase equilibria, and surface tensionapplied research is focused on solar energy accumulation, optimization of conditions for aluminium electrochemical production; then transport of heat where molten salts act as cooling media (nuclear power plants), etc.source
Head: RNDr. Ľubomír Smrčok, CSc.research based on the development of computational methods for treating electron correlation in molecules and solidscomputational studies of NMR and EPR parameters of organometallic, biologically and catalytically active substancesthe most importantly, combining of experimental methods (vibrational spectroscopy, neutron and X-ray structure analysis) with precise DFT calculations in the solid state.source
Head: prof. Ing. Dušan Galusek, DrSc.the research covers mostly the study of processing, microstructure, and properties of polycrystalline ceramic materials and the relation between structure, composition, and properties of oxide glassesthe development and optimalisation of new glasses for industrial applications, and corrosion of glasses by aqueous media; then polycrystalline alumina-based materials, especially liquid phase sintered (LPS) aluminas, etc.source
1953 – 1963: Mikuláš Gregor1963 – 1970: František Hanic1970 – 1982: Edmund Kanclíř1982 – 1990: Miroslav Zikmund1990 – 1991: Blahoslav Čičel1991 – 1995: Vladimír Daněk1995 – 1999: Jozef Noga1999 – 2013: Pavol Šajgalíksince 2013: Miroslav Boča