Dr. David Zitoun is associate professor in the department of chemistry at Bar Ilan University (Israel) and a member of the Energy Center at the Bar-Ilan Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials (BINA). DZ is leading a research group of 14 people investigating synthesis of nanomaterials for energy applications; Li-ion batteries, fuel cells and other catalysts. He has held a position of senior lecturer at the University of Montpellier (France) for five years. DZ has a MSc degree of Materials Science from the Ecole Normale Superieure (France) and has graduated as a PhD student with Dr Chaudret (Universite Toulouse 3, France) in Coordination Chemistry. DZ has been awarded a fellowship for a post-doctoral position in Prof. Peidong Yang Nanowire Research Lab at the University of California Berkeley. His work has been highlighted in more than 60 publications, 4 patents and 10 invited conferences. DZ is acting as associate editor of the Journal of Nanoparticle Research (Springer).

Research Areas:

Bottom-up approach of nano-devices

The aim of Dr Zitoun's laboratory is to elaborate nano-components for batteries, fuel cells, redox-flow batteries and sensors. The laboratory works on the integration of these nano-building blocks in devices.

Dr Zitoun's lab develops an alternative route to elaborate thin films using wet chemistry deposition. Two major routes are explored; the first one consists in the colloidal synthesis of nanospheres and nanowires which are spread on the substrate by wet coating. In a second approach, the molecular precursor is directly targeted to the substrate and reacts in situ. The lab synthesizes reactive organometallic complexes and studies the thermolysis, photolysis and chemical reduction of these complexes. Dr. Zitoun brings a major achievement with the use of designed reactive organometallic precursors that could be decomposed to form metallic coatings down to room temperature. This approach allows direct synthesis on the desired substrate (metallic, plastic...) with the use of standard coating equipment and/or state of the art research equipment, like Atomic Layer Deposition.
 

Particular research areas (projects):

1. Nanomaterials

2. Energy storage

3. Magnetism