The Institute of General and Physical Chemistry was established within the Institute of Chemistry, Technology and Metallurgy (ICTM), founded in 1961 by the Government of Serbia.

Academician Milenko Šušić,
founder of IGPHFirst the Department of General and Physical Chemistry was created as a joint effort between the ICTM group for physical chemistry, led by academician Milenko Šušić, professor at the Group for Physical Chemistry of the Faculty of Science in Belgrade and groups for general chemistry and analytical chemistry at Belgrade University.

Later the Institute of General and Physical Chemistry (IGPH) was formed through the amalgamation of the Department of General and Physical Chemistry and the Department of Plasma Physical Chemistry. The founder and first director of the IGPH was academician Milenko Šušić.From 1982 to 1990, the Institute of General and Physical Chemistry was part of the Institute of Physics, and from 1990 it became an independent Institute of General and Physical Chemistry.

Professor Dušan Vučelić,
IGPH science research coordinator up to 2000In 1991, IGPH is registered as the Holding Company of the Institute of General and Physical Chemistry. By decision of the Government of Serbia in 2005, IGPC Holding became The Institute of General and Physical Chemistry, accredited at the Ministry of Science and Technology Development of the Republic of Serbia, as the research-development Institute of general interest in the field of natural and mathematical sciences. Since its founding, IGPH has been engaged in basic, applied and developmental research in physical chemistry, with focus on solid-fluid boundary phenomena, thermal analysis, physical melting chemistry and electrochemistry of complex compounds. Numerous graduate and master's theses and doctoral dissertations have been done at IGPH. IGPH associates have successfully applied the acquired knowledge through basic research to solve many problems that have arisen in various production processes, as well as through new technologies and products that they developed.

The list of technology solutions and products that has been result of applied research conducted at IGPC is long: tantalum capacitors with solid electrolyte, filters of different fineness for fluid purification, filters for coolant purification, automatic self-regenerating stations for drying and purification of compressed gases, automatic self-regenerative device for fluid drying, gas and temperature measuring device 17 decisions on the introduction of JNA weapons, production of water glass, production of zeolite powder, production of granular zeolites, production of white fillers, production of detergents and compact detergents with zeolite, drying of brewer's yeast, Diabetes 2 (preparation for regulating blood sugar and cholesterol levels).

All these technology solutions and products has been applied in industry leading to boost of the former Yugoslavia’s commercial export of goods. Under leadership of prof. Dušan Vučelić the IGPC Engineering Department designed projects for detergent zeolite production. On the basis of these projects, several production plants were constructed. One of these plants became the biggest producer of detergent zeolite in the world. For example factory of water glass, zeolite powder, granular zeolites and white fillers was built in Birač-Zvornik, a factory of water glass and zeolite powder was built in Tallinn, and zeolite production technology is also used in the Zeolite factory Mira, Mira, Italy. Zeolite from Birač, Zvornik, produced by IGPC technology, was the best export product of the former Yugoslavia in the late 1980s. Factory at Zvornik at that time supplied about 50% of the European market and about 30% of the world zeolite market.