Mihkel Kaljurand

Mihkel Kaljurand (born 1945) is an Estonian chemist and professor emeritus at Tallinn University of Technology. His research has focused on analytical chemistry, especially computerized chromatography, capillary electrophoresis, portable analytical instrumentation and green analytical chemistry. Later overviews of green analytical chemistry have described the 2010 book Green Analytical Chemistry, which he co-authored with Mihkel Koel, as the first book devoted to the subject and an important marker in the field's development.

Early life and education Kaljurand was born in Rakvere and graduated from Rakvere I Secondary School in 1963. He studied at the University of Tartu, graduating in 1973.

Career Before joining Tallinn University of Technology, Kaljurand worked at the Institute of Chemistry of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, where he was later a senior researcher. He is listed by the university as professor emeritus and senior scientist in the Division of Chemistry.

His international appointments have included a research visit to a NASA research centre in 1995–1996 and a 2002 Fulbright Visiting Scholar stay at Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Research and scientific contributions Kaljurand's early work was associated with computerized chromatography and chemometrics. This line of work formed part of the research cycle Computer chromatography, which received an Estonian national research award in 1991. A later profile in ERR's science coverage summarised his recent research interests as portable analysers based on microfluidics for detecting illegal drugs and hazardous chemicals without transporting the sample to a laboratory.

Kaljurand has also been closely associated with the development of green analytical chemistry. TalTech reported in 2019 that he and Mihkel Koel had been working on the subject since 2006 and that the Royal Society of Chemistry had commissioned a revised edition of their book. Later histories of the field identified Koel and Kaljurand's work among the contributions that helped establish its principles and strategies and linked the rapid growth of the literature in the subject to the appearance of their 2010 book. In 2009 he received the Order of the White Star, Fourth Class. TalTech named him Scientist of the Year in 2011. In 2025 the university included him among the first recipients of its long-service Honor Universitatis recognition for employees with at least fifty years of service.

Selected works