Chemical Engineering in Riga Polytechnical School and in Riga Polytechnical Institute

Chemical Engineering in Riga Polytechnical School and in Riga Polytechnical Institute

Māra Lēruma, Līga Bērziņa-Cimdiņa This is a historical overview of the establishment and development of chemical engineering as a subject of higher education between 1863 and 1918 in Riga Polytechnical School (RP) and Riga Polytechnical Institute (RPI). A connection between chemical engineering and manufacturing was ensured by the simultaneous development and interaction of science and technology. This served as a source of new progressive ideas and strongly influenced the development of manufacturing. Establishment of chemical engineering as a subject of higher education, and its inclusion in the curricula occured already in 1863 at the time when RP as the first Russian Polytechnic School was founded and its Department of Chemistry established. Along with the reorganization of RP into RPI (in 1896), programs in studies of chemical engineering were improved with the addition of subjects which enabled the future engineers  to obtain deeper knowledge of the various divisions of chemical engineering, to understand the technological processes and function of equipment required, and how to optimize the  conditions for the various  technological processes . These subjects laid the foundation for studies in general chemical engineering, which, in its turn, led to the establishment of the Department of General Chemical Engineering in the Faculty of Chemistry. The most versatile and influential professors and scientists of chemical engineering at this time were M. Glasenapp and K. Blacher. Evaluation of the study programs today shows that they are currently important and noteworthy. They include energy resources and types, timber processing, drug manufacturing, sugar processing and environment protection. These are important directions at the present time in which innovative technologies are being developed. It is the inclusion of topics of chemical technology in the high school curricula of RP in 1863 that eventually led to the creation of the Department of General Chemical Engineering in RPI.