The Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of BAS (IGIC – BAS) is a beneficiary of the project “European Twinning on Materials Chemistry Enabling Clean Technologies”, acronym TwinTeam under contract №Д01-272 / 02.10.2020. The project is for a period of two years (2020-2022) and started on 02.10.2020. The funding is under the National Program “European Scientific Networks” of the Ministry of Education and Science, adopted by Decision № 5578 / 06.08.2020 of the Council of Ministers. The program enables IGIC to implement the project, which was highly praised by independent experts of the European Commission in the competition “Twinning” of the Framework Program for Research and Innovation of the European Union “Horizon 2020”.
The main goal of the project is to increase the research and technological potential of scientists at IGIC in the field of chemistry of materials for clean technologies by building a scientific network with three leading scientific organisations: Imperial College London (UK), Institute for Applied Materials – Energy storage systems at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany) and the Institute of Materials Science at the University of Seville (Spain). It is planned to form three international scientific teams for joint work in the field of materials and thin films for environmental protection; clean energy storage materials and ceramics / bioceramics and glass for a better life. Through a series of activities such as conducting joint research and publishing scientific results in the most renowned scientific journals in materials science, hiring young researchers on the topics, organizing scientific seminars, schools and meetings, ensuring the mobility of researchers to partner organisations and mutual internships for the exchange of knowledge, experience and good practices, successful cooperation with partner organisations will be established and developed. The partners have a global reputation and experience in developing new approaches and methods of synthesis, the introduction of innovative physicochemical techniques for characterization, modelling and testing of catalysts and adsorbents, electrode materials for post-lithium ion batteries, ceramics and glass with optical and luminescent properties and bioceramics with medical application. The main result from the realisation of the project is the establishment of IGIC as an innovative core in the National Center for Excellence in Mechatronics and Clean Technologies. On the one hand, this will ensure the sustainability of the project results, and on the other hand, the project will meet Bulgaria’s needs to improve its research potential by 2030 in the priority area “Materials for clean energy and environmental protection”. The implementation of the TwinTeam project will contribute to strengthening the participation of IGIC scientists in future European and international projects.
