Institute of General Chemical Engineering
The Institute of General Chemical Engineering (IGCE) was founded in 2010 by merging the Department of General Chemical Engineering and RTU Rudolfs Cimdins Riga Biomaterials Innovation and Development Centre.
Professor, Dr.sc.ing. Līga Bērziņa-Cimdiņa was Head of the institute from December 2006 to May 2018, since 2018 the Head of institute is Professor, Dr.sc.ing. Jānis Ločs.
IGCE is the structural unit of the Faculty of Materials Science and Applied Chemistry of Riga Technical University.
More than 70 employees work in the institute, they carry out the academic and scientific work and are tightly involved in new specialist training.
The scientific work of institute is organized according to the Quality Management System ISO 9001: 2000.
History of the Chemical technology in Latvia since 1893
Celebrating the 76th anniversary of the Department of General Chemical Engineering and the 10th anniversary of RTU Rudolfs Cimdins Riga Biomaterials Innovation and Development Centre, the development of the direction of chemical technology in higher education in Riga from its beginnings in 1893 was summarized in the monograph “From beer fermentation and soap making to biomaterials and eco-materials technologies”. The monograph contains the collected historical information about implementation of various chemical engineering subjects, the foundation of Department of General Chemical Engineering and Institute of General Chemical Engineering, work of academic staff and scientific–research activities from 1863 to 2016.
The largest research work at the archive and compilation of information, which basically forms the high quality of the monograph’s historical information, has been performed by Māra Lēruma.
The monograph can be assessed as a source of reference for everyone related to engineering sciences and innovative biomaterials and eco-materials technology and its practical application in the development of new industries in Latvia.
