prof. Ing. Vladimír Mareček, DrSc.

In 1967 he graduated from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague and obtained the degree Ing. (equivalent to M.S.). In the next year he became a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Polarography of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Here he was engaged in the research of electrochemical processes in non-aqueous media and in the development of electrochemical instrumentation. In 1973 he was awarded Ph.D. degree and thereafter he was involved in the investigation of electrocatalysis on solid electrodes.

In 1976 he started research of electrochemical processes at the interface of two immiscible electrolytes. This new direction has represented a substantial enrichment of the Prague electrochemical school founded by Professor Jaroslav Heyrovský, since it has expanded the investigation of electrochemical processes on liquid and solid electrodes to electrochemical processes at liquid-liquid interfaces. The knowledge obtained in this field is of importance both for physical chemistry and for biology due to the analogy between the liquid-liquid interface and cell membranes.

He published his research results in more than 100 papers mostly in renowned international journals. The citation index of these papers is over 1400 (without autocitations), the H-index equals 34. In 1989 he was awarded DrSc degree. In 1992 he habilitated as a docent at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague and in 2002 he was appointed Professor at the University of Pardubice.

Recently he has been concerned with adsorption of polar substances at liquid interfaces, with blocking of ion transport across the adsorbed monolayer and with the mechanism of the hydrogen ion transfer from water to the organic phase. These themes are of relevance for biology.

He spent several working stays in the United States and Italy, he held courses at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague, at the Faculty of Science of Charles University and at the University of Pardubice. He worked in the Grant Agency of the Academy of Sciences, in the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, in the branch councils and commissions for physical chemistry, chemical physics, analytical and inorganic chemistry and chemical technology. He has been a member of scientific councils of the mentioned universities and of commissions for awarding DrSc degree. He revived the annual international Heyrovský Discussions on electrochemistry and organized himself some of them. From 1993 through 2000 he was director of the J. Heyrovský Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.