The 2019 EuChemS Lecture Award will be awarded to David Portehault in recognition of his major achievements as a junior scientist working in chemistry in a country with a EuChemS Member Organisation. Usually, the winner gets the opportunity to give a lecture at the next European Chemistry Congress (ECC) or at a conference of a EuChemS Professional Network (PN). However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the postponement of the 8^th European Chemistry Congress (ECC8) to 2022, the event will take place online in 2021.

David Portehault obtained his PhD in soft chemistry and nanomaterials science in 2008 at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris under the supervision of Prof. Jean-Pierre Jolivet. He then obtained a grant from the Program for Nanomaterials co-chaired by the Max Planck Society and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) to perform a senior post-doctorate at the Max Planck Institute for colloids and Interfaces (Potsdam) with Prof. Markus Antonietti from 2008 to 2010.

Since 2010, he is researcher at CNRS, in the Laboratory of Condensed Matter Chemistry of Paris at Sorbonne Université. His research topics are at the edge of nanomaterials chemistry and solid-state chemistry. He is focusing on the development of methods, centered on liquid-phase syntheses, to design nanoparticles with original compositions and structures, to understand the reactivity of nanomaterials and to provide new insights into the properties of nanoparticle-based materials, spanning electrocatalysis, charge transport and energy conversion.

In his EuChemS Lecture, David will present the recent efforts of the group in taking inspiration from Nature, more specifically from geological events, to synthesize original nanomaterials. David will present geo-inspired synthesis conditions, from low temperature chimie douce in water, to liquid-phase synthesis in inorganic molten salts and to high pressures. He will show several cases of inorganic nanomaterials encompassing complex oxides and non-oxides like boron-, nitrogen- and silicon-based solids, discuss their formation pathways and show the unique electrochromic and electrocatalytic properties at stake with these nanoparticle-based materials.