Curriculum

Education

  • February 2009 – Ph.D. Degree in Chemical Engineering and Industrial Chemistry at Politecnico di Milano with full marks and laude. Title: The Catalytic Partial Oxidation of methane at short contact time: surface characterization, kinetic study and adiabatic testing of Rh-based catalysts.
  • October 2005 – Master Degree in Chemical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano with full marks and honors (110/110 cum laude). Title: Catalytic Partial Oxidation of CH4 over Rh/α-Al2O3 catalysts: preparation and conditioning process of the catalytic material.
  • October 2003 – Bachelor Degree in Chemical Engineering at Politecnico di Milano with full marks and laude (110/110 cum laude). Title: Activity study of zirconia-supported palladium oxide catalysts (PdO/ZrO2) for applications in methane combustion.

Academic achievements

  • 2020 – National Scientific Qualification (Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale, ASN) as Full Professor. The academic recruitment field is Chemical Plants and Technologies (09/D3, Impianti e Processi Industriali Chimici) within the group of Chemical and Materials Engineering (09/D). The scientific discipline is Industrial and Technological Chemistry (SSD ING-IND 27, Chimica Industriale e Tecnologica).
  • Since May 2017 – Associate Professor at Politecnico di Milano. He carries out his research activity at the Laboratory of Catalysis and Catalytic Processes (LCCP) in the Department of Energy.
  • From December 2008 to April 2017 – Assistant Professor at Politecnico di Milano, in the Department of Energy, working in the LCCP group.
  • 2012 – ASN as Associate Professor (09/D3, Impianti e Processi Industriali Chimici, SSD ING-IND 27, Chimica Industriale e Tecnologica).

International research experiences

  • Fulbright Research Scholar at the Materials Science and Engineering Department of Northwestern University, Evanston (US), from January 15 2021 to July 15 2021
  • Visiting scientist at the Institut für Technische Thermodynamik – Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt (DLR) in Stuttgart (Germany), from March 2012 to July 2012.
  • Visiting scholar at the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science (CEMS) of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis (US), from July 2007 to August 2008.

Teaching activity

Alessandro Donazzi currently teaches two courses belonging to the Master degree programs of the Energy Engineering faculty and of the Chemical Engineering faculty of Politecnico di Milano:

  • Since the academic year 2022-2023, Processes for Hydrogen and Energy Transition.
  • Since the academic year 2016-2017, Fundamentals of Chemical Processes for Energy and Environment.

From the academic years 2010-2011 to 2021-2022, he taught the class of Fuels and Combustion Processes in the Bachelor degree program of the Energy Engineering faculty. Since 2015, he is member of the teaching team of the “Direct Fuel Conversion” course included in the Ph.D. program of the Energy and Nuclear Science and Technology (STEN) school of the Department of Energy, where he teaches the parts dedicated to “Catalytic aspects of fuel cells” and “Microscale and multiscale modeling of SOFCs”. He also teaches seminar lessons on fuel cells in the “Electrochemical Energy Conversion and Storage” course. Since the academic year 2010-2011, he is teaching assisting the course of Fundamentals of Chemical Processes. He has advised 42 among Master Degree theses (40, 28 as main advisor) and Bachelor Degree theses (2). He has advised two Ph.D. students, and he is currently advising one. He regularly tutors students and follows the experimental work in the Laboratory of Catalysis and Catalytic Processes. He is a member of the judging committees for the Master Degree in Energy Engineering. He was member of the Commisisone Esami di Stato (2010).

Research interests

The research activity of Alessandro Donazzi is focused in the following topics:

  • heterogeneous electrocatalysis, Solid Oxide Electrolysis cells, (SOECs), Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs)
  • development of novel electrocatalytic materials
  • heterogeneous catalysis for H2 and syngas production (partial oxidation, steam and CO2 reforming)
  • model analysis of fuel cells
  • model and experimental analysis of chemical kinetics and transport phenomena
  • model analysis and design of catalytic reactors.

During his research activity, Alessandro Donazzi gained expertise in the study of catalytic processes by application of advanced experimental tools, such as the annular microreactor and the spatially resolved temperature and concentration profiling technique. He also gained expertise in the characterization of catalytic and electrocatalytic materials with several techniques (Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy, conductivity measurement, Raman spectroscopy, chemisorption with probe molecules, TPO/TPR, thermogravimetric analysis). In his research, Alessandro Donazzi couples the experimental activity with the development and the use of numerical tools (reactor and cell models, derivation of kinetic schemes). The quantitative analysis of the experimental results with appropriate numerical models is a distinguishing feature of the investigation method adopted. A characteristic element of the research is the progression from fundamental aspects to applicative aspects.

Awards

2019 Fulbright Award: grant authorization as Research Scholar at Northwestern University, Evanston (US).

2020 Fondazione Banca del Monte di Lombardia FBLM: funding to purchase equipment for electrochemical testing of solid oxide cells.

2011 VIP award to the paper: Synergy of Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Chemistry Probed by In Situ Spatially Resolved Measurements of Temperature and Composition, by Alessandro Donazzi, Dario Livio, Matteo Maestri, Alessandra Beretta, Gianpiero Groppi, Enrico Tronconi, Pio Forzatti, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 50 (2011) 17, 3943-3946. The paper was awarded as a VIP, Very Important Paper (5% Top Articles), and was honored with the cover page of the journal issue.

Invited lectures

  • June 24 2021 Invited seminar lecture at the University of Twente – “Experimental and model investigation of SOFC kinetics”.
  • June 4 2021 Invited seminar lecture at the University of California Irvine – “Physical models for the investigation of kinetics in SOFCs”.
  • July 7 2019 Invited seminar lecture at Karlshrue Institute of Technology (KIT Germany) – “Running SOFCs at intermediate temperature: electrocatalytic and catalytic aspects”.

Major scientific collaborations

  • Collaboration with the research group of Professor Lanny D. Schmidt (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, US) with concern to the application of the spatially resolved sampling technique in the reaction of catalytic partial oxidation of hydrocarbons. Three joint papers published.
  • Cooperation with the research group of Professor Raymund Gorte (University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, US) with respect to the preparation and testing of novel cathodes for SOFCs. One joint paper published.
  • Collaboration with the research group of Professor Scott Barnett (Northwestern University, Evanston, US) with respect to the preparation and testing of novel Solid Oxide Cells for ethanol conversion.

Contracts

As Principal Investigator:

  • PRIN 2022 (2023-2025): Nanocomposite multi-ionic Ceria Carbonate Electrodes for New reversible Electrolysis – NICENESS
  • Snam (2023-2026): experimental study of Proton Conductive Ceramic Electrolysis Cells.
  • Eni (2022-2024): experimental study of pressurized Solid Oxide Fuel Cells.
  • Pietro Fiorentini (2018-2021): experimental study of Low Temperature Solid Oxide Fuel Cells for direct methane supply.
  • Ricerca sul Sistema Energetico, RSE spa (2020-2021): characterization and preparation of catalytic materials for thermo-chemical heat storage.
  • Eurokin Project Plasma Techniques in Catalysis (Eurokin Task Number B16a, 2016-2017).

As associated researcher:

  • THEOREMA SIR 2014 Project (MIUR): Integrated theoretical-experimental methodology for operando-Raman kinetic studies in heterogeneous catalysis. Code: RBSI14TG3E. Ongoing project.
  • SHAPE Project (ERC Starting Grant 2015): Structure-dependent microkinetic modeling of heterogeneous catalytic processes. Ongoing project.
  • PRIN 2010-2011: Intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells fed by bio-fuels (BIOITSOFC). Associated researcher for Politecnico di Milano.
  • PRIN 2006: Micro-space confined catalytic combustion. Associated researcher for Politecnico di Milano.
  • Radici Chimica (2010-2013): author of an experimental and model analysis of the reaction of catalytic decomposition of nitrous oxide.
  • Johnson Matthey (2009-2010): author of a state-of-the-art literature review on the measurement of high temperature kinetics.

Additional scientific activities

  • He serves as a reviewer for the following journals: Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Journal of Power Sources, Energy, Applied Energy, International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, Chemical Engineering Research & Design, Applied Catalysis A: General, Chemical Engineering Journal, Chemical Engineering Science.
  • He served as chairman at the 13th European Congress on Catalysis (Europacat 2017) held in Florence from August 27 to 31, 2017.
  • He was one of the organizers of the 20th Italian congress on catalysis (XX GIC – DiChIn) held in Milan from September 2 to 5, 2018.

Memberships

He is a member of the Order of Engineers of the Province of Milan, of the Italian Chemical Society (SCI) catalysis section (GIC) and of the American Electrochemical Society.