Prominent Personalities - Friderik Pregl

Prominent Personalities

Fritz Pregl

Friedrich “Fritz” Pregl was born in Ljubljana in 1869, where he received his elementary education. After completing medical studies in Graz,  he went on to study with Wilhelm Ostwald and Emil Fischer, both recipients of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He returned to Graz in 1913 to take up an appointment as a full professor of applied medicinal chemistry at the University of Graz, a post he held until his death in 1930. At the time that Pregl was embarking on his scientific career, the precise elemental analysis of organic compounds represented a significant problem. A great deal of painstaking and time-consuming work was needed to obtain a sufficient quantity of a sample. Pregl turned his attention to developing a basis for quantitative organic microanalysis. His method significantly reduced the quantity of a substance needed to complete an analysis, and also the amount of time required. As a result, it quickly became an indispensable part of laboratory work throughout the world. Pregl was soon nominated for the Nobel Prize, eventually winning it in 1923.

Although Fritz Pregl lived in Austria for the greater part of his life, he nevertheless maintained his ties with his native Slovenia, even donating some of his apparatus to the University of Ljubljana. Slovenia is still very proud of its home-grown Nobel laureate today. For several decades now, secondary school students around the country have competed for bronze, silver and gold plaques bearing Pregl’s name in an annual chemistry contest, while every year the National Institute of Chemistry bestows Pregl Awards for outstanding achievements in chemistry and related disciplines.

Iztok Turel

University of Ljubljana

Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology