In 2019, the 150th anniversary of the discovery of Periodic law of chemical elements by D.I.Mendeleev, and the year is offilically declared by UNESCO as the International Year of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. Throughout the year, activities dedicated to this event will take place all over the world.

On January 29, at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, and a week later, on February 6, at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow the opening ceremony of the year was held with the participation of the Russian Minister of Science and Higher Education M.M. Kotyukov, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Academician A.M. Sergeev, Rector of Moscow State University Academician V.A. Sadovnichy and the Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation D.A. Medvedev. Students and employees of the Laboratory of New Materials for Solar Energetics organized an interactive experimental exhibition “Laboratory” dedicated to the application of various chemical elements in chemistry and materials science.

Head of the laboratory Alexey Tarasov, jr. researcher Alexey Grishko and jr. researcher Andrey Petrov participated in the largest international conference on perovskite photovoltaics – PSCO-2018 (Lausanne, Switzerland), which took place from October 30^th to November 2^nd, where they presented some recent results of the laboratory in oral and two poster presentations.

Many conference participants are well acquainted with the laboratory’s publications on reactive polyiodide melts and perovskite adducts with aprotic solvents and the new data presented drew great attention. Junior researcher Aleksei Grishko was awarded a diploma of the Journal of Materials Chemistry A RSC for the best poster.

Students of the laboratory showed outstanding results at the All-Russian conference Lomonosov-2018 in the section "Fundamental Materials Science":

Bachelor students:
Andrei Tutantsev (3^rd year bachelor student) - II degree diploma
Nikita Stepanov (2^nd year) - III degree diploma
Alexander Sudakov (1^st year) - III degree diploma

Master and PhD Students:
Aleksei Grishko (1^st year PhD student) - I degree diploma
Yulia Sokolova (2^nd year master student) - II degree diploma
Natalia Shlenskaya (2^nd year PhD student) - II degree diploma
Elena Zharyonova (1^st year master student) - III degree diploma
Pavel Rudnev (1^st year master student) - III degree diploma

In addition, Yulia Sokolova was awarded the 1^st degree diploma in the competition of student works at the VIII Conference of Young Scientists on General and Inorganic Chemistry, conducted during the same days by S.N. Kurnakov Institute of General and Inorganic Chemistry of Russian Academy of Sciences. Congratulations!

On November 12, an international forum dedicated to renewable energy sources 'COP23 Renewable Energy Day' took place in Bonn, held by the International Renewable Energy Agency - IRENA.

Among the invited speakers of the forum the academic community of Russia was presented the Laboratory of new materials for solar energy. Participants of the forum with great interest took the report on the prospects of perovskite solar energy and breakthrough work in this area conducted at Moscow State University.

On 21^st of July a research project on perovskite solar cells was presented to the President of Russia Vladimir Putin. At the stand, talented schoolchildren presented a hand-made working prototype of a perovskite solar cell developed in the framework of their project.

Three members of the laboratory graduated today as Masters in Materials Science: Nikolai Belich, Aleksei Grishko and Andrey Petrov.

On May 31th Prof. Michael Graetzel participated in a scientific seminar of the laboratory. Professor Graetzel presented the latest results of his research goup. A.V. Shevelkov presented his results on iodobismuthates. Master students Nikolai Belich, Aleksei Grishko and Andrey Petrov briefly delivered their latest results on their research topics.