Ignazio Blanco, full professor of Chemical Foundations of Technologies at the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture of the University of Catania and current coordinator of the Interdivisional Group of Calorimetry and Thermal Analysis of the Italian Chemical Society, was awarded the Świętosławski Medal “for outstanding achievements in the area of thermal analysis”.
The prestigious recognition was awarded during the fifteenth Polish National Conference on Calorimetry and Thermal Analysis (CCTA 15) which took place in Zakopane on September 8-12, 2024.

The medal is awarded by the Board of the Polish Society for Calorimetry and Thermal Analysis in memory of Prof. Wojciech Świętosławski (1881 – 1968), a Polish physical chemist who is considered to be the "father of modern thermochemistry".

Świętosławski, who was vice president of IUPAC and twice nominated for the Nobel Prize, developed a new direction in calorimetric research in the early 1920s, which he called microcalorimetry. He built microcalorimeters that worked under isometric and adiabatic conditions, and also microcalorimeters based on partial heat exchange with the surrounding environment.

Following the award ceremony, Prof. Blanco delivered a plenary lecture on The Role of Thermal Methods in Additive Manufacturing regarding the design and additive manufacturing of devices where thermal dissipation plays a fundamental role.