Professor Jaroslav Heyrovsky was a world-renowned Czech chemist born in Prague on December 20, 1890, who fundamentally transformed analytical chemistry through his groundbreaking inventions. He earned his Ph.D. from Charles University in Prague in 1918 and his D.Sc. from the University of London in 1921, having continued his studies while serving as a dispensing chemist and radiologist in a military hospital during World War I. He began his academic career as an assistant to Professor B. Brauner at the Institute of Analytical Chemistry of Charles University, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1922 and became the university's first Professor of Physical Chemistry in 1926. His foundational work established him as a visionary leader in electrochemical research during the early twentieth century.
Dr. Heyrovsky's most significant contribution was the invention of the polarographic method in 1922, which revolutionized chemical analysis by enabling precise qualitative and quantitative determinations of reducible or oxidizable substances in solutions. His polarographic technique, which measures current flow when a predetermined potential is applied to electrodes immersed in a solution, created an entirely new branch of electrochemistry known as electroanalytical chemistry. By 1924, he had demonstrated the first polarograph, and within a decade, the method had gained widespread adoption across scientific communities worldwide. His seminal monograph Polarographie, published in 1941, systematically documented the theoretical foundations and practical applications of this technique, cementing its importance in chemical analysis.
As a scientific leader, Dr. Heyrovsky founded the journal Collection of Czechoslovak Chemical Communications in 1929 with Emil Votocek to disseminate Czech chemical research internationally. In 1950, he was appointed Director of the newly established Polarographic Institute, which became part of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in 1952, where he continued his research until his later years. His work earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1959, recognizing his discovery and development of polarographic methods of analysis. Dr. Heyrovsky received numerous prestigious honors including membership in the German Academy of Sciences and the German Academy of Natural Scientists, and served as Vice-President of the International Union of Physics from 1951 to 1957. His legacy as the father of electroanalytical chemistry endures through the continued use and development of polarographic methods that form the basis of many modern electrochemical analytical techniques.
