University of Silesia in Katowice

We are extremely proud to announce that Yaroslav Grosu, PhD, DSc from the Institute of Chemistry has been honoured with the title of Honorary Professor of Surface Science and Energy Materials Engineering at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom for special achievements and scientific discoveries, constituting an outstanding contribution to the state of knowledge and scientific progress.

Link to the scientist’s profile

Yaroslav Grosu obtained his doctorate in 2015 at the Blaise Pascal University (France) and the National Technical University (Ukraine) under a joint procedure for the awarding of a doctoral degree (cotutelle agreement). After obtaining his doctorate, he gained research experience in various laboratories, including at the UC Davis, the University of Birmingham and the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory. His scientific interests include the broadly understood physical chemistry of solid-liquid interfacial interactions, hierarchical porous materials, nanofluids and corrosion. The scientific projects he conducts are interdisciplinary in nature and are mainly focused on thermomechanical energy storage and energy conversion.

Yaroslav Grosu, PhD, DSc’s research portfolio includes the FET-Proactive Electro-Intrusion and ERC PoC NODRY projects from the Horizon 2020 programme, the Nano2 Fluid SONATA NCN project as well as several industrial projects. He received a Minister of Education and Science scholarship for outstanding young scientists. He is the author of approximately 100 peer-reviewed scientific articles.

Yaroslav Grosu’s research resulted in a scientific discovery consisting in demonstrating the existence of an unprecedented negative value of compressibility of hydrophobic elastocapillary systems [1-3] and demonstrating for the first time in the literature the triboelectrification effect in the intrusion-extrusion process [4,5]. Moreover, research conducted by Grosu on the corrosion of high-temperature molten salts led to an outstanding contribution to scientific progress in the form of presenting the graphitisation method as a new anti-corrosion method used in solar power plants and CSP photovoltaic farms [6,7].

1. Tortora, M., Zajdel, P., Lowe, A.R., Chorążewski, M., Leão, J.B., Jensen, G.V., Bleuel, M., Giacomello, A., Casciola, C.M., Meloni, S. and Grosu, Y., 2021. Giant negative compressibility by liquid intrusion into superhydrophobic flexible nanoporous frameworks. Nano letters, 21(7), pp.2848-2853.
2. Zajdel, P., Chorążewski, M., Leão, J.B., Jensen, G.V., Bleuel, M., Zhang, H.F., Feng, T., Luo, D., Li, M., Lowe, A.R. and Geppert-Rybczynska, M., Li, D., Grosu, Y. 2021. Inflation negative compressibility during intrusion–extrusion of a non-wetting liquid into a flexible nanoporous framework. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 12(20), pp.4951-4957.
3. Johnson, L.J., Mirani, D., Le Donne, A., Bartolomé, L., Amayuelas, E., López, G.A., Grancini, G., Carter, M., Yakovenko, A.A., Trump, B.A., Meloni, S., Zajdel, P., Grosu, Y, 2023. Effect of Crystallite Size on the Flexibility and Negative Compressibility of Hydrophobic Metal–Organic Frameworks. Nano Letters, 23(23), pp.10682-10686.
4. Grosu, Y., Mierzwa, M., Eroshenko, V.A., Pawlus, S., Chorążewski, M., Nedelec, J.M. and Grolier, J.P.E., 2017. Mechanical, thermal, and electrical energy storage in a single working body: electrification and thermal effects upon pressure-induced water intrusion–extrusion in nanoporous solids. ACS applied materials & interfaces, 9(8), pp.7044-7049.
5. Lowe, A., Tsyrin, N., Chorążewski, M., Zajdel, P., Mierzwa, M., Leão, J.B., Bleuel, M., Feng, T., Luo, D., Li, M. and Li, D., Stoudenets V., Pawlus S., Faik A., Grosu Y., 2019. Effect of flexibility and nanotriboelectrification on the dynamic reversibility of water intrusion into nanopores: Pressure-transmitting fluid with frequency-dependent dissipation capability. ACS applied materials & interfaces, 11(43), pp.40842-40849.
6. Grosu, Y., Nithiyanantham, U., Zaki, A. and Faik, A., 2018. A simple method for the inhibition of the corrosion of carbon steel by molten nitrate salt for thermal storage in concentrating solar power applications. npj Materials Degradation, 2(1), p.34.
7. Grosu, Y., Anagnostopoulos, A., Navarro, M.E., Ding, Y. and Faik, A., 2020. Inhibiting hot corrosion of molten Li₂CO₃-Na₂CO₃-K₂CO₃ salt through graphitization of construction materials for concentrated solar power. Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells, 215, p.110650.