Professor Janusz Lewiński from the Faculty of Chemistry of the Warsaw University of Technology and the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences has received the 2024 FNP Prize in the field of chemical and materials sciences for the development of mechanochemical methods for the synthesis of perovskites, improving their photovoltaic properties.

Born in 1956, Lewiński obtained a doctoral degree in chemistry at the Faculty of Chemistry of the Warsaw University of Technology in 1989. This was also where he defended his habilitation dissertation in 2001, receiving the title of Professor of Chemical Sciences in 2007. Since 2014, Lewiński has chaired the Department of Catalysis and Organometallic Chemistry at the Faculty of Chemistry of the Warsaw University of Technology. In 2008, he concurrently began working at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where he also heads the Coordination Complexes and Functional Materials Group. As a visiting scholar, Professor Lewiński stayed at many European and American universities, including the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), Rice University in Houston (United States), University of Göttingen (Germany), University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), Federal Polytechnic of Lausanne (Switzerland), and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (France). These visits have led to long lasting scientific cooperation, in particular with the last three institutions.

Lewiński is the author of more than 190 scientific articles and book chapters, many of which have been published in the most prestigious periodicals, dedicated to both general and specialized chemistry, namely: Angewandte Chemie, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Chemical Science, Advanced Functional Materials, and Energy and Environmental Materials. His research work has garnered numerous awards, including the Award of the Scientific Secretary of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1989), the Kemula Medal of the Polish Chemical Society (2000), the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Award of the Polish Academy of Sciences (2008), the CNRS-Université de Rennes Medal (2008), Team Award of the Minister of Education and Science (2010), Scientific Award of the Rector of the Warsaw University of Technology (2011), and the Wojciech Świętosławski Award of the Polish Chemical Society (2023). Lewiński became a member of the European Academy of Sciences in 2013 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2015, while in 2022 he was named a Chemistry Europe Fellow. Lewiński has promoted the revival of mechanochemistry, which is an extremely efficient and environmentally friendly method of synthesizing chemical compounds and obtaining functional materials. Acting as national coordinator for the EU-funded European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) program “Mechanochemistry for Sustainable Industry (Mech@SustInd)”, he has contributed to the mechanochemical community both in Poland and Europe. Lewiński has co-directed two major EU projects (FP7 Noblesse and H2020 FET-Open GOTSolar) and has managed more than twenty scientific projects funded by major Polish research funding institutions: the Foundation for Polish Science (including twice the TEAM project) and the National Science Centre (including twice the MAESTRO grant).

Professor Janusz Lewiński’s research is multidisciplinary – his interests range from fundamental inorganic and organometallic chemistry to catalysis, chemistry, and engineering of materials and functional nanomaterials, as well as nanotechnology. A distinctive feature of his team’s research is the implementation of fundamental knowledge at the molecular level into practical applications. As a result of his engagement in the applied research, he filed more than twenty patents and, in 2016, he founded the Nanoxo company, which develops the chemistry and technology of heavy metal-free semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots), and perovskite materials.

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Professor Janusz Lewiński has received the 2024 FNP Prize in the field of chemical and materials sciences for the development of mechanochemical methods for the synthesis of perovskites, improving their photovoltaic properties.

Metal halide perovskites (MHPs), materials with the general chemical formula ABX₃, have a regular crystal lattice structure and are structural analogs of the naturally occurring perovskite minerals. The unique physical and chemical properties of MHPs, such as their high light absorption coefficient or the ability to modulate their properties in a desired direction through the controlled defection of the crystal lattice, have transformed MHPs into one of the most intensively developed groups of semiconductors in the last decade. The key driving force behind the development of MHP chemistry has been their use in perovskite solar cells (PSCs), which is commonly considered to be the most pivotal development in photovoltaics since the invention of silicon-based cells. Perovskite photovoltaics enable the fabrication of devices that are efficient and cheap to manufacture. However, the application range of perovskite materials is much broader and also includes photocatalysis, light-emitting diodes (LEDs), and ionizing radiation detectors.

Despite their still imperfect durability parameters, over the past decade, both organic and inorganic metal halide perovskites have completely revolutionized the sector of optoelectronic semiconductors designed for various photovoltaic and optoelectronic applications. MHPs are typically produced in laboratories using conventional wet chemistry methods, which require the use of organic solvents. However, this approach suffers from serious flaws, including the limited range of achievable MHPs due to the inability to use insoluble substrates and the instability of the colloidal dispersions obtained.

Lewiński and his team proposed an alternative, pioneering approach in which MHPs are synthesized simply and efficiently using a solvent-free mechanochemical method, namely through a direct reaction of substrates in solid form induced by mechanical force This approach offers greater reproducibility of the synthesis process and the ability to use a wider spectrum of substrates, allowing to obtain perovskites not achievable through wet chemistry. Moreover, perovskite materials obtained mechanochemically (mechanoperovskites) can be stored for months in an inert gas atmosphere, easily transported to remote locations, and the same batch of material can be successively used for subsequent tests, allowing for experiment standardization.

Photovoltaic cells made using mechanoperovskites have better performance and a longer lifespan due to fewer structural defects. These highly advantageous performance parameters of Lewiński’s team’s mechanoperovskites have been validated in the course of collaborative work with leading foreign research laboratories involved in the manufacture of PSCs. Furthermore, the environmental cost of solvent-free mechanochemical synthesis methods is lower, while the methods themselves have a particularly high atom and energy efficiency, which makes them part of the increasingly influential green chemistry trend. It is against this backdrop that mechanochemistry was included in the list of “10 Innovations That Will Change the World” announced by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).

The novel mechanochemical method for synthesizing perovskites paves the way for their broader practical use and offers a viable foundation for industrial-scale production of perovskite photovoltaic cells. The further development of PSCs holds promise as a potential alternative to the silicon photovoltaic devices widely used today.

 

 

Fot. Magdalena Wiśniewska-Krasińska

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