The J. Stefan Institute home page is located at http://ijs.muzej.si/

Department of Inorganic Chemistry and Technology (K1)

The activity of the Department of Inorganic Chemistry and Technology is directed into three main spheres of interest:

Inorganic Fluorine Chemistry

In the field of inorganic fluorine chemistry the department has been active already for the last forty years. The production of elemental fluorine on the pilot plant scale was developed together with its purification to the spectroscopic quality. In the field of noble gas chemistry new methods were developed for the syntheses of binary fluorides of noble gases. Here, the preparation of krypton(II) fluoride with the capacity of 1 g KrF2 per hour, using photosynthesis in liquefied fluorine with UV light, should be mentioned. The whole set of xenon(II) and xenon(VI) fluorometalates was isolated and characterized in this laboratory. Recently the series of new thermally unstable binary fluorides (e.g. NiF4, CuF3 etc.) was isolated in addition to some other new binary fluorides (e.g. NiF3, AgF3, Ag3F8, CrF4 etc.). This work was performed in the cooperation with Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley (Emeritus Professor Neil Bartlett). The above mentioned binary fluorides are very strong oxidizers already as the neutral species, while their cationic species especially of NiF4 and CuF3 could surpass KrF+ salts, the strongest known oxidants up to now. In the field of inorganic materials on the basis of fluorine a whole set of hydrazinium(1+) and hydrazinium(2+) fluorometalates was isolated and characterized. Besides the efforts were concentrated in the syntheses of environmentally friendly freons and synthesis of fluoride-oxide superconducting material.

Technology

In the field of technology, modelling of flue gas desulphurization plant based on SO2- into-droplet absorption model was developed. The model was tested on the pilot plant measurements performed on a flue gas desulphurization pilot plant designed for up to 18.000 Nm3 per hour with maximum SO2 concentrations of up to 7.500 mg/Nm3. The pilot plant is able to be dismantled and erected at the client's location. Further, calibration and modelling of different chemical, biochemical and other processes using artificial neural networks (ANN) and other chemometric techniques are studied. Optimization of the processes is performed using Genetic Algorithms (GA). The advantage of GA optimization technique is that it thoroughly and randomly searches all of the measurement space and at the same time quickly iterates towards the best solution.

Education

The department is engaged in several research projects with secondary school students. Further, in 1992 the School of Experimental Chemistry for secondary school students was established at this department. The school is organized as one-week courses. The programme of the courses comprises of various interesting experiments in the field of general and inorganic chemistry performed by the students themselves. Through these experiments they learn basic laws in chemistry and find chemistry an interesting and "friendly" subject. In the school year 1993/94 over 30 such courses will be performed.

It has been always characteristic of this group that about 30-50% of its financial support has been obtained directly from industry. Therefore, the group is very much engaged in the solving of the technological problems of the local industry, mostly in the solving of ecological problems and optimization of the production. The group is also in close cooperation with many scientific institutions from all over the world in the field of synthetic fluorine chemistry.

[IMAGE: pilot plant]

Research projects financed by the Ministry of Science and Technology (titles in Slovene language)

Contact: Prof. Boris "Zemva