Head: Assoc. Prof. Zahari Vinarov, DSc
Room: К4
Phone: (+359 2) 8161 262
The department was founded in 1983.
Research areas: Disperse systems (foams, emulsions, suspensions); Capillary phenomena and hydrodynamics of thin liquid films; Two-dimensional colloidal crystals; Surfactant solutions - kinetics and thermodynamics of adsorption and micellization; Mechanisms of detergency; Biophysics of fat digestion; Thermodynamics and physicochemical hydrodynamics of complex fluids; Transport phenomena and computer modelling; Pharmaceutical and medical applications of disperse systems; Dynamic light scattering (DLS); Ellipsometry.
The department is the successor of the Laboratory of Thermodynamics and Physicochemical Hydrodynamics (LTPH) founded in 1983 as part of the Faculty of Chemistry at the Sofia University. During the period from 1983 to 1993, head of the laboratory was Prof. Ivan Boyanov Ivanov, Ph.D., D. Sc. During this period, the laboratory was responsible for the training of students in specialization “Chemical Physics and Theoretical Chemistry” to major “Chemistry” in the Faculty of Chemistry. More than 80 % of the students graduated from this specialization work as university academic staff and as researchers in the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and in many foreign research units in Western Europe, USA and Japan. From 1993 to 2008, head of the laboratory was Prof. Peter Kralchevsky. In December 1999, as a result of teaming up with the Laboratory on Membrane Technology, LTPH was renamed Laboratory of Chemical Physics and Engineering (LCPE).
In 1992 and 1995 the Laboratory won two consecutive 3-year projects, based on TEMPUS program (funded by the EU) for training of master students in “Separation Processes in industry and the environment” and “Control and purification of natural and waste waters”. The training was conducted jointly with universities in France, Germany, England, Greece and Belgium.
From 2008 to 2015, head of the laboratory and later of the department was Prof. Nikolai Denkov, Ph.D., D.Sc. In May, 2009 the laboratory was transformed into Department of Chemical Engineering (DCE). In 2008, jointly with the Department of Applied Inorganic Chemistry a new Bachelor program Chemical Engineering and Contemporary materials was created. In 2012, the Department created a new MSc program Disperse Systems in Chemical Technology. In May 2014, DCE was renamed Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Engineering (DCPE). Together with the Department of Applied Organic Chemistry, DCPE is responsible for teaching the basic course of Technology of the Dosage Drug Design for the MSc program “Pharmacy”.
At present, the DCPE has 10 people academic staff, including four Full Professors, two Associate Professors and four Assistant Professors. Among them, one is Fellow of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), another one is Corresponding Member of BAS, two have DSc degree, and eight have PhD. In addition, around 35 people are employed on scientific research projects of SRC, including 11 as Researcher R2 and 18 as Researcher R1.
The research interests of DCPE are mainly in the area of disperse systems with applications in chemical, pharmaceutical and food industry. Fundamental and applied research is carried out in close cooperation with academic and industrial research centers in Western Europe (UK, France, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland), USA, India and Malaysia. Academic partners of DCPE have been the Cambridge University (UK), ETH Zürich (CH), Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (Mainz, DE), ESPCI-Paris (FR), as well as R&D centers of the companies Unilever, BASF, Saint Gobain, Dow Corning, Krüss, and KLK OLEO. At present, 18 research projects are led by the professors in DCPE.
The Department is well equipped with apparatuses and computer network for scientific research and training. In average, DCPE publishes 15 scientific papers per year in peer reviewed journals, presents over 30 lectures at international conferences (several of them plenary and invited) and 10-15 invited seminars in foreign institutes and universities. Professors of the department are among the most cited Bulgarian scientists: Prof. Peter Kralchevsky with over 6500 citations; Prof. Nikolai Denkov with over 5500 citations, and Prof. Krassimir Danov with over 3000 citations.
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