PRESIDENT’S REPORT 2015
| Newly Created UNESCO Chair at Technion for Sustainable Engineering Date: 13/06/2012 |
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| Prof. Mark Talesnick of the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering is the incumbent of the newly established UNESCO Chair in Sustainable Engineering in Developing Communities.
The specific objectives of this Chair are to develop undergraduate and graduate teaching programs in engineering for developing communities, in cooperation with partners; carry out research on engineering for developing communities and disseminate results widely; design, test and apply, jointly with partners, ground-level projects to test and further refine the concept of sustainable engineering; and, provide short-term theoretical and practical training, as well as facilitate visiting professorships. Talesnick reports that the University of Colorado and Kathmandu Universities are also involved and that he will be travelling to Ghana, Ethiopia and Batswana soon to enlist their collaboration as well. Talesnick also spearheads Engineers Without Borders – Technion (EWB). Currently, 739 UNESCO Chairs and 70 UNITWIN Networks in 134 countries provide an innovative modality for international academic cooperation. They act as think-tanks and bridge- builders between research and policy-making, and between academia, civil society, local communities and the productive sector. |
Tag Archives: water
Keep it PURE – Nano filters for cleantech & desalination.
1912-2012: the Technion Centennial Stamp features
one application of the innovative nano fibers
Featured on the Technion 2012 Cornerstone Centennial Stamp, the nanofibers behind the dynamic new start-up NanoSpun signify many of the secrets of Technion’s success in conceptualizing, shaping and nurturing Israel as the high-tech global success of the third millennium.
Why would Cornell University and New York City invite Technion to set up a new campus on Roosevelt Island, in order to boost economic growth through innovation and entrepreneurship? Throughout the world, news headlines have cited Technion’s unique ability to produce dynamic and profitable start ups using advanced technology and skills. In 2012, one company that exemplifies the secrets of this success is the prize-winning start up NanoSpun.
Clean Hydogen Energy Solutions
Stop Press! December 5th, 2011: Dr. Avner Rothschild, will lecture on: Metal-oxide photoelectrodes for solar-induced water splitting: turning rust to gold. This seminar is part of the Technion-Monash: Nanosceince tele-seminar series, which is a cooperation of the Technion and the University of Melbourne in Australia. The seminar will take place at the Cooper building (main building of Industrial Engineering, Technion City), room 112, at 8 a.m.
Energy Transformers
By Georgina Johnson
Dr Avner Rothschild is working on new, efficient ways of using sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is a clean and potentially abundant alternative to fossil fuels. Its large-scale use could lead to the sustainable development, energy independence, and security of many nations.
One of many powerful scientists tackling basic and applied problems in energy science and technology, Dr Avner Rothschild, of the Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP) and the Faculty of Materials Engineering, has a penchant for high targets. Not only has his life-time hobby been climbing impossible cliff-faces, he also has a powerful vocation to make solar-produced hydrogen a viable future energy alternative.
Rothschild’s group in Technion’s Electroceramics Materials and Devices Laboratory is part of a large European collaborative project looking to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using the energy of the sun – thus creating a 100 percent clean fuel. “We try to produce hydrogen and oxygen by splitting water. The process is possible – it works – but the problem is low efficiency.”
His team is developing nanostructured metal-oxides for applications in environmental and energy conversion technologies. The group has a strong expertise in investigating electronic and ionic defects in semiconducting and mixed ionic-electronic conducting oxides and their effect on transport properties and electrochemical processes.
The scientific barrier is efficiency, says Rothschild, who sees the promise in the development of new electroceramic materials. “We are engineering tandem cells – several different cells, each one with a different aspect of energy from the sun. We are aiming at 5,000 hours stable operation at 10 percent efficiency.”
“We started this project at 3 percent efficiency,” says Rothschild. “Now we are at 5 percent. Our goal is still more – 10 percent – but it is within reach.”
NanoPECs
NanoPEC (Nanostructured Photoelectrodes for Energy Conversion) is the European consortium at work with Dr Avner Rothschild to crack the codes of clean hydrogen production and complement Rothschild’s studies in new materials with research from basic science to integration of total systems. The consortium, including groups from Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and Switzerland which meet four times a year, is under the scientific leadership of Prof. Michael Grätzel, director of the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces (LPI) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne. In 2007, Grätzel received Technion’s prestigious Harvey Prize in science and technology and recently, in June 2010, the Finnish Millennium Technology Prize – the largest technology prize in the world – for development of dye-sensitized solar cells.
Photoelectrochemical cells (PECs) can split water directly into H2 and O2 via photoelectrolysis, and in so doing provide a basis for a renewable, clean production of hydrogen from sunlight. They rely on a photoactive material – a semiconductor – capable of harvesting and converting solar energy into stored chemical fuel, namely, hydrogen. Very little hydrogen gas is present in Earth’s atmosphere, but hydrogen is locked up in enormous quantities in water, hydrocarbons (such as methane), and other organic matter. Efficiently producing hydrogen from these compounds is one of the challenges of using hydrogen as a fuel.
Clean Hydogen Energy Solutions
Stop Press! December 5th, 2011: Dr. Avner Rothschild, will lecture on: Metal-oxide photoelectrodes for solar-induced water splitting: turning rust to gold. This seminar is part of the Technion-Monash: Nanosceince tele-seminar series, which is a cooperation of the Technion and the University of Melbourne in Australia. The seminar will take place at the Cooper building (main building of Industrial Engineering, Technion City), room 112, at 8 a.m.
Energy Transformers
By Georgina Johnson
Dr Avner Rothschild is working on new, efficient ways of using sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is a clean and potentially abundant alternative to fossil fuels. Its large-scale use could lead to the sustainable development, energy independence, and security of many nations.
One of many powerful scientists tackling basic and applied problems in energy science and technology, Dr Avner Rothschild, of the Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP) and the Faculty of Materials Engineering, has a penchant for high targets. Not only has his life-time hobby been climbing impossible cliff-faces, he also has a powerful vocation to make solar-produced hydrogen a viable future energy alternative.
Rothschild’s group in Technion’s Electroceramics Materials and Devices Laboratory is part of a large European collaborative project looking to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using the energy of the sun – thus creating a 100 percent clean fuel. “We try to produce hydrogen and oxygen by splitting water. The process is possible – it works – but the problem is low efficiency.”
His team is developing nanostructured metal-oxides for applications in environmental and energy conversion technologies. The group has a strong expertise in investigating electronic and ionic defects in semiconducting and mixed ionic-electronic conducting oxides and their effect on transport properties and electrochemical processes.
The scientific barrier is efficiency, says Rothschild, who sees the promise in the development of new electroceramic materials. “We are engineering tandem cells – several different cells, each one with a different aspect of energy from the sun. We are aiming at 5,000 hours stable operation at 10 percent efficiency.”
“We started this project at 3 percent efficiency,” says Rothschild. “Now we are at 5 percent. Our goal is still more – 10 percent – but it is within reach.”
NanoPECs
NanoPEC (Nanostructured Photoelectrodes for Energy Conversion) is the European consortium at work with Dr Avner Rothschild to crack the codes of clean hydrogen production and complement Rothschild’s studies in new materials with research from basic science to integration of total systems. The consortium, including groups from Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and Switzerland which meet four times a year, is under the scientific leadership of Prof. Michael Grätzel, director of the Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces (LPI) of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne. In 2007, Grätzel received Technion’s prestigious Harvey Prize in science and technology and recently, in June 2010, the Finnish Millennium Technology Prize – the largest technology prize in the world – for development of dye-sensitized solar cells.
Photoelectrochemical cells (PECs) can split water directly into H2 and O2 via photoelectrolysis, and in so doing provide a basis for a renewable, clean production of hydrogen from sunlight. They rely on a photoactive material – a semiconductor – capable of harvesting and converting solar energy into stored chemical fuel, namely, hydrogen. Very little hydrogen gas is present in Earth’s atmosphere, but hydrogen is locked up in enormous quantities in water, hydrocarbons (such as methane), and other organic matter. Efficiently producing hydrogen from these compounds is one of the challenges of using hydrogen as a fuel.
World-Class Hydrology: Jacob Bear Honored by American Geophysical Union
Jacob Bear Receives 2010 Robert E. Horton Medal
Jacob Bear was awarded the 2010 Robert E. Horton Medal at the AGU Fall Meeting Honors Ceremony, held on 15 December 2010 in San Francisco, Calif. The medal is for “outstanding contributions to hydrology.”
“Jacob lists a lifetime of unique accomplishments, and his influence on the field is unparalleled”
Citation
It is a pleasure and an honor to introduce Jacob Bear, professor emeritus at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology, as the 2010 Robert E. Horton medalist. Jacob has had a prime influence on the hydrological sciences and on virtually every scientist who has studied hydrogeology during the past 40 years.
Jacob lists a lifetime of unique accomplishments, and his influence on the field is unparalleled. Jacob has made pioneering, diverse contributions to basic and applied scientific aspects of groundwater hydrology. He began his career in the 1960s acutely concerned by the paucity of tools for quantitative modeling and by the huge gaps in fundamental understanding of the physics of flow and transport in porous media. Jacob has devoted his career to remedying this situation by working to combine basic physical principles, mathematical analysis, and practical applications to produce a coherent and systematic methodology for formulating and quantifying problems in subsurface hydrology. The impact of Jacob’s work has so significantly influenced the field, in so many ways, that it is difficult to enumerate them.
Jacob has had an immeasurable impact through his books, which remain key reference sources to this day. His first book, Physical Principles of Water Percolation and Seepage, in 1968 with S. Irmay and D. Zaslavsky, introduced a comprehensive approach based on mathematical modeling and included among many subjects both saturated and unsaturated (multiphase) flow and solute transport in porous media. This was the beginning of Jacob’s implementation of his concept of “transport phenomena in porous media” as opposed to “movement of water in aquifers.” Indeed, in 1967 and 1969 Jacob organized two international symposia that brought together scientists from many disciplines—hydrologists, soil physicists, reservoir engineers—who had not been communicating previously. As an outgrowth, Jacob’s later books, particularly the 1972 Dynamics of Fluids in Porous Media (which has since been reissued by Dover and has more than 8000 citations), have had a huge impact on the field, and virtually every student and researcher in hydrogeology has studied from Dynamics or referred to it on some occasion. This book changed both theory and practice on a global level. Jacob has also mentored a long list of outstanding young researchers and practicing engineers throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.
Jacob has made benchmark research contributions, notably, to the theory of volume averaging, to quantification of dispersion in solute transport, and to modeling of seawater intrusion (combined with management of coastal aquifers). The latter work dictated management of the coastal aquifer of Israel from the early 1960s and has led to practical improvements in exploitation of coastal aquifers around the world.
As a consequence, Jacob has fundamentally influenced the thinking of at least two generations of hydrologists. Jacob’s conceptual thinking and quantitative approaches have revolutionized the field of groundwater hydrology. Quite simply, Jacob Bear is a legend in his own time. Jacob Bear is a credit to AGU, richly deserving of this highest distinction for outstanding contributions to the geophysical aspects of hydrology.
—BRIAN BERKOWITZ, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
“I cannot close without thanking my many students who helped me, sometimes pushed me, to move ahead, eventually reaching this point.”
Response
I would like to begin by expressing my thanks to those who nominated me for this prestigious award, to those who supported the nomination, to those who selected me, and to Brian Berkowitz for his warm citation.
Many of you, who know me mainly from my books, have no doubt noticed that I am working in two, albeit interconnected, directions: groundwater hydrology and modeling phenomena of transport in porous media. Knowledge of the latter is essential for the former. In addition, this knowledge constitutes the basis for many other engineering disciplines, like geochemistry, petroleum reservoir engineering, chemical engineering, and biomedical engineering. Common to these disciplines is the fact that phenomena of transport of mass, momentum, and energy occur in the special multiphase domain called “porous medium.” The starting point is the use of a magnifying glass to observe and understand what happens at points within the phases and on interphase boundaries and then, by employing homogenization of one kind or another, obtain mathematical models that describe these phenomena in terms of measurable quantities in a domain regarded as a continuum.
An exciting aspect of this area is that it is interdisciplinary. It requires knowledge (and cooperation with experts) in physics, chemistry, continuum mechanics, thermodynamics, and more. All of this knowledge is used to solve societal problems of water resources, energy, and the environment.
Traditionally, groundwater hydrologists have been dealing with extracting groundwater from aquifers while ensuring good quality water and aquifer sustainability. Nowadays, geologists, geochemists, hydrologists, and reservoir engineers join forces to solve environmental problems. An example is carbon dioxide sequestration in deep geological formations, often saturated with brines. Currently, a lot of research and implementation activities are taking place on this exciting subject around the world.
Altogether, I feel lucky to work in the field of hydrology, in which I can combine theory and application, research, and teaching around the world and cooperate with colleagues of many disciplines in contributing to the solution of societal problems—ensuring a sufficient quantity of clean water to the population and ensuring a clean environment.
I cannot close without thanking my many students who helped me, sometimes pushed me, to move ahead, eventually reaching this point.
Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Siona, and my children and grandchildren for being patient when I have been spending with them much less time than they deserve.
Thank you.
Thank you.
—JACOB BEAR, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa