Some of her works have been highlighted by Science for Environment Policy, which is the news and information service published by the Directorate-General Environment, European Commission. 

Elza Bontempi story and achievements were published in Il SOLE 24 ORE, a national newspaper, on December 2023.

See the Paolo Bricco article - Il Sole 24 ore

See also the Giornale di Brescia news about my research activity on January 2025

Full Professor in Fundamental Chemistry for Technologies (from 2011) at the University of Brescia (Italy).

Top Italian Scientist (https://topitalianscientists.org/) in Natural & Environmental Sciences, AREA: environmental chemistry. 

She is on the list of the UNSTOPPABLE WOMEN (the 1000 women who are changing Italy) and one of the 100 esperte.

For the publications list see: Google Scholar

Scopus Author ID: 7004176714

RESEARCHER ID: http://www.researcherid.com/rid/F-3216-2010

ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1656-7506

To advance the state of play about circular economy in higher education, she published a book about “Raw materials substitution sustainability” in 2017. This book is used as a reference for the students of the "Energy and Materials Sustainability" course of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology (https://kth.se/en), which is ranked as the 73rd university worldwide. 

PRIZES:

- 2012 International prize: “what are you doing for a better society?” (2nd position) from European Projects Association for the proposed project about the circular economy (waste recovery)

- 2016 International prize: “European Business Idea Competition on raw materials” from European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) Raw Materials, for the proposed STARS project about the circular economy (waste recovery).

- 2018 Special mention on the national ITALIADECIDE prize for the development of new material for air particulate matter trap.

- 2018 Winner of Prize for “Enabling technologies and innovative solutions for sustainable cities” from the Italian association for industrial research (AIRI).

- 2018 Winner of the GAETANO MARZOTTO prize (22th November 2018) for the development of a new eco-material recovered from industrial by-products;

- 2018 Winner of the ITWIIN (Italian Women Innovators and Inventors Network) prize (assigned on 9th November 2018 http://www.itwiin.org/) for the development of a new eco-material recovered from industrial by-products;

- 2019 Innovation Village Award, for the best project in the frame of Global Agenda for sustainable development (4th April 2019).

-2019 Bronze medal award for the international poster contest of Remtech (the only permanent international event dedicated to remediation, climate changes, and circular chemistry), about new technology for sewage sludge treatment (September 2019)

-2020 national winner of the ENERGY GLOBE AWARD, the most significant environmental award worldwide.

-2021 finalist of the international ENERGY GLOBE AWARD prize, the most significant sustainability award worldwide

- 2022 International prize: “SusCritMOOC business idea competition on Critical Raw Materials” from European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) Raw Materials, for a patent about the low-energy microwave carbothermal extraction of critical raw materials

- 2022 Merit for the scientific and technological results granted by the mayor of Bienno

- 2023 Finalist of the Donna dell'anno Award, and awarded of a special mention

- 2023 Winner of the Premio 2031 Primo round (ex GAETANO MARZOTTO prize)

- 2024 Winner of the Intellectual Property Award prize of Ministero delle Imprese e del Made in Italy for the CLIMATECH category

- 2024 Winner of the WE Award – Women Excellence 2024 in the "Education and Research" category prize of Il Sole 24 ORE and Financial Times, in collaboration with SKY.tg24

Elza was the TOP WORLD RESEARCHER (first position of reported 500 researchers by SciVal) for the research topic of Waste Incineration; Municipal Solid Waste; Carbonation; for the 2017-2020 period.