Two awards to Prof. Doron Orbach from the Chemistry Department at Bar-Ilan University - for his research in the field of electrochemistry

The Outstanding Researcher Award from the American Electrochemical Society and the Kolthoff Award from the Technion Faculty of Chemistry for 2013/4 will be awarded to Prof. Doron Auerbach from the Chemistry Department at Bar Ilan University

The Battery Division of the American Electrochemical Society (ECS-ELECTROCHEMICAL SOCIETY) has chosen Prof. Doron Auerbach from Bar-Ilan University as the outstanding researcher in the field for 2013. The award will be presented to him at the 224th meeting of the society to be held in October of this year in San Francisco. This is an important award of the Society for Electrochemistry, which is based in the United States but includes most of the research groups in the field, from all over the world.

This award is given to outstanding scientists from the global electrochemistry community, who have contributed to promoting the development of innovative power sources such as rechargeable batteries for various needs (from mobile electronics to electric propulsion), supercapacitors and systems for the accumulation and conversion of renewable energy. Every year, an outstanding scientist who receives the award is chosen, on a competitive basis, by vote, by a committee of prestigious scientists (appointed ad hoc every few years by the society's institutions). The requirements are to prove systematic, multidisciplinary research that succeeded in breaking through ways to develop innovative power sources. Another criterion is a unique contribution to the scientific community beyond day-to-day research.

At the same time, Prof. Alon Hoffman, Dean of the Technion Faculty of Chemistry, announced that the "Kulthoff Award" committee of the Shulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion, also chose Prof. Doron Orbach as the recipient of the award for 2013/14. The Kolthoff Prize is awarded annually by the Faculty of Chemistry to an outstanding Israeli chemist outside the Technion. The award is funded by funds from a fund established by the late Prof. Kolthoff.

The two prizes will be awarded to Prof. Auerbach for "his groundbreaking research on electrolytic processes in non-aqueous solutions and the development of lithium/magnesium electrodes which contributed to the basic understanding and technological developments in the field of electrochemistry."

For about 30 years of research, Prof. Auerbach's research group has contributed a lot to rechargeable lithium ion battery technology. These batteries conquer the markets and operate almost all portable electronic equipment today. Their research has contributed to the understanding of success and failure mechanisms of many systems, while backing up their work with basic research that uses the most advanced analytical techniques, befitting an academic group. They invented the field of rechargeable magnesium batteries, which is gaining a lot of interest, due to magnesium metal being common, cheap and safe to use. They published over 430 articles in the leading press in physical chemistry, electrochemistry, materials science, registered over 20 patents and appeared in hundreds of different international arenas in invited lectures.

In addition, Auerbach and his colleagues, in close collaboration with the German chemical giant BASF and the important American car company General Motors, are developing advanced batteries for electric propulsion (for example - silicon-lithium-sulfur, lithium-ion batteries with a voltage and capacity that are 50%-30% higher energy from standard lithium ion batteries). They also develop new technologies for efficient storage of renewable energy (solar, wind).

In terms of his contribution to the scientific community, Prof. Doron Auerbach has for many years served as a scientific editor in 3 important electrochemistry journals and as a member of international committees that organize 2 important biennial conferences in the fields of power sources.

In Israel, in addition to being the head of the research group in electrochemistry (one of the largest research groups in the field in the world, and perhaps the largest research group in Israel), he heads the National Research Center for Electric Propulsion where 14 research groups from 4 academic institutions in Israel are members (Bar Ilan, Tel Aviv, the Technion and Ariel).

Prof. Auerbach will be hosted at the Technion Faculty of Chemistry for two lectures: one, as part of a departmental seminar and the other, a colloquium lecture, in which all faculty members and students from all fields participate. In October, he will give the keynote speech at the conference in San Francisco.