Slovenia's science awards for lifetime achievement, the Zois Prizes, this year are going to chemistry engineer Željko Knez and developmental psychologist Ljubica Marjanovič Umek. Igor Akrapovič of the eponymous exhaust maker is being honoured with the Puh Prize for lifetime achievement in innovation.

Knez, a professor at the Maribor Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, is a leading expert in separation processes and product engineering involving sub- and supercritical fluids at high pressure.

The supercritical fluids he has researched are extremely useful in the industry since they can be used in an advanced way to extract the desired ingredients such as caffeine from coffee. These processes are efficient and environmentally friendly, the prize committee said in announcing the winners on 14 October.

Honoured for his lifelong contribution to chemical engineering, Knez is credited with the development of many innovative and technological processes protected by more than 40 patents.

Professor emeritus at the Ljubljana Faculty of Arts, Marjanovič Umek is an internationally acclaimed researcher in developmental psychology, her speciality being cognitive and language development in children.

Her work has made an important contribution to the understanding of the impact factors, such as parents' speech, shared reading and play, on the child's early speech development and literacy, the prize committee said.

Having developed the first test to assess the speech development in the Slovenian language, Marjanovič Umek has laid the foundations for professional work in this field. Her research has also established the importance of an early enrolment in a quality kindergarten in the development of toddlers and children.

Akrapovič, the owner of the exhaust maker Akrapovič, received the Puh Prize for lifetime achievement in innovation because of his dedication to investing in the continuous development of products and technologies.

His innovation, vision and determination have been instrumental in his making "a breakthrough in the field of exhaust systems for motorcycles and cars", the jury said, describing his company as a global success story.

The recipients of another dozen Zois and Puh awards were declared, including this year's Ambassador of Science of Slovenia, which went to Kristina Djinović-Carugo, a structural biology researcher with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory.

The winners will receive the prizes at a ceremony in the arts centre Cankarjev Dom on 28 November. Congratulating them, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Innovation Igor Papič said that without their efforts it would be hard to imagine the continued successful development of society.

This year, the prize money will be the same as the amount given to the recipients of the Prešeren Prizes, the country's awards in culture and arts. The winners of the Zois and Puh prizes and the Ambassador of Science will receive €30,000, while minor Zois and Puh prizes will come with €10,000.

The Zois Prizes, the highest accolades in science, are named after Baron Žiga Zois (1747-1819) and have been presented annually since 1998.

The Puh Prizes were first given out in 2018 to honour researchers whose work has contributed to Slovenia's economic or social development. They are named after inventor Janez Puh (1862-1914).