National Institute of Chemistry in Ljubljana

National Institute of Chemistry (in Slovene: Kemijski inštitut) in Ljubljana is the second largest natural sciences research institute in Slovenia after the Jožef Stefan Institute (the largest one in the country).

History

It was established in 1946 as part of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts with the purpose of developing technologies for processing coal into coke that was needed in the heavy industrialization period in history of Slovenia after the Second World War.

In 1953, it was renamed after the first president of the Slovenian socialist government Boris Kidrič Boris Kidrič Institute of Chemistry.

In 1956, the first infrared spectrometer Perkin Elmer 21 was purchased.

In 1992, following the country’s independence the Slovenian high-resolution NMR spectrometry centre was established at the institute.

Employees and equipment

The institute's 289 employees, of which 126 have PhD degree, today work with research equipment that allows cutting edge research, such as Karl Zeiss Supra 35 VP Electronic Microscope with EDX analysis, a high resolution powder x-ray diffractometer, and an 800 MHz NMR spectrometer; these are the only ones of their kind in Slovenia. The NMR spectrometer is the first of this kind of instrument to be found in the new member states of EU.

Major achievements

One of its major achievements is the 2013 synthetic protein that folds itself into a tetrahedron — a pyramid with a triangular base measuring just 5 nanometres along each edge - which can be used as container for delivering drugs on a nano scale. It was synthesized by Roman Jerala