CeNT Seminar (Monday, August 31st, 2026, 11:00 AM): Substitute materials for sustainable Energy Technologies

20 08 2026

The Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw invites to a seminar by:

prof. Teresa Gatti

Department of Applied Science and Technology, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Title: Substitute materials for sustainable Energy Technologies
Date: August 31, 2026
TIme: 11:00 (Central European Time)
Host: prof. Silvio Osella

The seminar will be held in the 00.142 auditorium, Banacha 2c

Abstract : Modern technologies in the fields of energy supply and electronics rely on a variety of highly specialized functional materials. Nowadays many of these consist of chemical elements whose limited availability may prevent a mass production of the respective devices or systems. Simple estimates for photovoltaics and thermoelectrics show that using these technologies on the required scale, i.e. Tera- Watts of electric power, will be strongly limited due to resource shortages and high production costs. The development of so-called “substitute materials”, based on abundant or “non- critical” chemical elements (“elements of hope”), as well as a general reduction of the material demand for a certain technology are required to meet this challenge. Current research applies these strategies to conversion, storage, as well as transport of energy.

Teresa Gatti is Full Professor of Chemistry for Applied Technologies at Politecnico di Torino, Italy. She was a previous Group Leader at the Center for Materials Research of the Justus Liebig University Giessen (Germany), where she maintains the permanent role of affiliated researcher. She is recipient of the 2021 European Research Council Starting Grant with a project on Janus 2D materials, of a 2025 ERC PoC grant on 2D-materials based piezoresistive blood pressure sensors and 2026 ERC PoC grant on lead-free materials for indoor photovoltaics.