Kemija u Industriji (Oct 2007)
View at Croatian Chemistry through Meetings of Croatian
Abstract
The 20th Croatian meeting of chemists and chemical engineers was a proper occasion to consider the past meetings and their role in the development of Croatian chemistry and chemical engineering last 40 years, because these meetings reflect to a large extent the state of these sciences in Croatia. The circumstances that lead to establishment of the Croatian meetings of chemists and chemical engineers and the role of Professor Marijan Laaan (1919-1981) who started these meetings by organizing the first one are described. He also organized the second and the seventh meeting. All persons who chaired these meetings are mentioned, as well as all the lecturers who won the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Especially emphasized is the participation of Vladimir Prelog (1906-1998) since the twentieth meeting was dedicated to him and to Leopold Ružička (1887-1976) - two excellent Croatian chemists who for their first-class research in organic chemistry won the Nobel Prize (Ružička in 1939 and Prelog 1975). The places where the meetings were held are listed. The structure of the meetings when the change of the meetings' title happened is delineated and the representation of various branches of chemistry according to the number of contributions is discussed. Similarly, the Croatian institutions according to the number ofcontributions of their staff-members and the contributors with the highest number of communications at each meeting are pointed out. Emphasized is the international character of these meetings and the countries from which the participants came are listed. Finally, only one contribution is discussed in detail - the report by Kata Mlinarić-Majerski and Zdenko Majerski on the preparation of [3.1.1]propellane inserted in the structure of adamantane. Adamantane chemistry in Croatia started with the first ever adamantane synthesis in 1941, when Prelog and Seiwerth prepared this cage hydrocarbon and is still going strong due to efforts by Kata Mlinaria-Majerski and her coworkers at the Rugjer Bošković Institute.
