7.12.2020 With deep sorrow we announce that the prominent Bulgarian physicochemist, Prof. Peter Kralchevsky, a longtime lecturer at the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy, and our highly esteemed colleague, passed away.
Prof. Peter Kralchevsky was born on October 23, 1956 in the town of Gabrovo. In 1974 he graduated with a gold medal from the Mathematical High School in Gabrovo. In 1981 he graduated from the Faculty of Physics at Sofia University with honors. In 1981 he was appointed physicist at the Department of Physical Chemistry of the Faculty of Chemistry at Sofia University, where he later became a PhD student (1982-1984). In June 1985 he defended his PhD thesis and in December 1990 he was elected Associate professor of "Chemical Physics" at the Laboratory of Physicochemical Hydrodynamics and Thermodynamics at the Faculty of Chemistry at Sofia University. In 2001 he became a Dr. Sci. in Physics. In 2002 he was elected Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at the Laboratory of Chemical Engineering Physics at the Faculty of Chemistry of Sofia University. For his high scientific achievements in 2004 he was elected a corresponding member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS), and in 2012 he was elected a full member of BAS and for many years was the youngest academician in the Republic of Bulgaria. In 2010 Prof. Kralchevski was elected Secretary of the European Colloids and Interace Society (ECIS), in 2015 he was elected as a Member of the Council of the International Association of Colloid and Interface Scientists (IACIS), and in 2020 as a member of the Academia Europaea.
Prof. Kralchevsky has an impressive scientific and educational activity, which is highly valued both internationally and nationally. He is one of the most prominent Bulgarian scientists - author and co-author of over 220 publications in scientific journals, 14 chapters in books and the innovative monograph "Particles at Fluid Interfaces and Membranes", published by "Elsevier" in 2001. His works have been cited more than 10,000 times in the scientific literature and his Hirsch index is h = 46. He has delivered 262 papers at scientific conferences and symposia, of which 58 are plenary or invited, as well as 44 invited lectures at foreign universities. In 2006 he was awarded the 'St. Kliment Ohridski' honorary ribbon, blue, for significant achievements in science. In 2007 he won the Young Professor of 2007 award. In 2016 he was awarded the the highest National Award "Pythagoras" for scientific achievements of the Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, and in 2020 received the the first ECIS – Lyklema Prize, in recognition of his outstanding scientific achievements and exceptional contributions to ECIS organizational activities and to the colloid community development.
Prof. Kralchevsky's main research is in the field of physical chemistry of fluid interfaces, surfactants and dispersed systems. He has made significant contributions to the development and application of a number of theoretical approaches in thermodynamics and hydrostatics of fluid surfaces and membranes, kinetics and thermodynamics of surfactant adsorption, surface forces and stability of liquid films, capillary forces between colloidal particles at interfaces and in thin films, theory of micellar solutions. Professor Kralchevsky is the author (together with his Japanese colleague Prof. K. Nagayama) of the first comprehensive monograph describing the behavior of colloidal particles at interfaces and in thin films. This important interdisciplinary field in recent years has focused the attention of a number of scientists due to its importance for obtaining new classes of nanomaterials and composite materials, the ability to stabilize foams and emulsions without the need for surfactants, to develop new analytical and diagnostic techniques in medicine. and for other important applications.
Prof. Kralchevsky was head of the Laboratory of Chemical Engineering Physics in the period 1993 - 2008; Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy in the period 2015 – 2019, and in the period from 2019 to his death he was the head of the Laboratory of Complex Fluids at the Department of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Engineering, leader of more than 50 scientific and scientific-applied projects with the participation of Bulgarian and foreign organizations. From 2007 to 2015 he was a member of the Management Board of NIS at Sofia University. He has been supervisor of the Theses of 16 Ph.D. students who continue his research in Bulgaria and around the world.
A tribute to his bright memory!
