HEYROVSKÝ, Jaroslav

After graduating, H. decided to study mathematics, physics and chemistry. He was particularly interested in the areas between chemistry and physics - physical chemistry, but had no opportunities to study it in Austria-Hungary. Therefore, he went to the University College in London, where he met the famous physical chemistry professor and Nobel Prize winner William Ramsay, who discovered the rare gases such as neon, argon, krypton and xenon. In addition to chemistry, H. also studied mathematics and physics, and took his B.Sc. degree in 1913. His dissertation topic was set by Ramsay's assistant Donnan and it discussed the study of aluminum electrolysis. Instead of aluminum he used amalgam, capillary filtered in order to avoid some of the characteristics of this metal. This study was not completed, as he travelled to Prague in 1914, where he spent the holidays. Due to the outbreak of World War I in July 1914 he was unable to return to London and was employed in the company J. S. Štěrba-Böhm, but had to join the army after a year.
He served the army in a pharmacy of 28th Infantry Regiment in Tabor and later also in the Tyrol, where he again got engaged in experiments. Although he was tired and ill, H. took his Ph.D. degree in Prague in 1918. Among examiners there was also a professor of experimental physics B. Kučera, who was concerned with surface tension measurements and he pointed out some anomalies in the electrocapillary curves of mercury electrode. He habilitated in 1920, took his Ph.D. at London University in 1921 and was appointed the first Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Charles University in Prague in 1992.
Studying the electrocapillary curves according to Kučera method led him to the idea that the surface tension measurements could be replaced with the current intensity measurements. Instead of electrocapillary curves he began to explore curves of flow depending on the potential of polarized mercury electrodes. He noted that the potential of dropping mercury electrode, which is linked under voltage is needed for extraction of metal, the ions of which are present and which emit from the electrode. His discovery was published in 1922 in the newspaper Chemické listy (Chemical Journal), and a year after in English Philosophical Magazine.
After he transferred the handwritten entries of value to the automatic photo list, the polarograph was made, an apparatus constructed by him and his Japanese student Shikato. Kolthoff made valuable theoretical contribution to the further development of polarography, which was at that time the most accurate measurement method. Kolthoff and H. went on a lecture tour across the USA together.
Together with Emil →Votoček H. in 1928 founded the newspaper Collection of Czechoslovak Chemical Communications, which was published both in English and in French. The review of his research work of the first two decades was published in the book Polarographie in 1941. Further work led to alternating current polarography, Faraday resistance measurements, Chronopotentometry, coulometry, Square-wave polarography, oscillograph polarography, as well as to the use of nozzle electrodes.
From 1950 H. was a director of the newly established Polarographic Institute. The institute in addition to theoretical work dealt also with the practical application of polarography, particularly in medicine. In 1959 he received a Nobel Prize for his discovery and development of the polarographic methods of analysis.