David Avnir

Prof. (emeritus) David Avnir (Hebrew: דוד אבניר; born 12 June 1947; St. Ottilien, Germany) is an Israeli Professor of chemistry at the Institute of Chemistry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he also obtained all his academic training, and where he has held the positions of Head of the School of Chemistry, Head of the Institute of Chemistry, and Head of the Graduate School of the Experimental Sciences. His current scientific activities include sol-gel materials, molecularly doped metals, chirality and symmetry in experiments and theory. Earlier interests included fractals in chemistry and far-from-equilibrium phenomena. He has co-authored more than 400 papers (2020), many of which are highly cited. Co-founder of the International Sol-Gel Society and its first chairman of the board. He was awarded the Israel Chemical Society Prize in 2011.

Prof.

David Avnir
Prof. David Avnir
Born (1947-06-12) 12 June 1947
Germany
CitizenshipIsrael
EducationBSc., MSc, and PhD. in Chemistry from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1969–1977. Post-doctoral studies, at the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and at Purdue University, United States, 1978–1979.
AwardsThe Israel Chemical Society Prize (2011), Life-time Achievement Award of the International Sol-Gel Society (2013), Distinguished Scientist, The Chinese Academy of Sciences (2018)
WebsiteProf. David Avnir Website

Early life and family

David Avnir was born in 1947 in a Displaced Persons hospital at the Benedictine archabbey of St. Ottilien, Germany.[1] In 1949 he immigrated to Israel and lived in Jerusalem for all of his childhood and later on for most of his adult life. Married to Dr. Yehudit Avnir (emeritus) of The Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. They have two children and 3 grandchildren.

Education

Prof. Avnir received his BSc., MSc (Prof. Israel Agranat), and PhD. (Prof. Jochanan Blum) in chemistry from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem during the years 1969–1977. His post-doctoral studies were with Prof. Paul de Mayo, in the University of Western Ontario, Canada, and with Prof. H. Morrison, at Purdue University, United States, during the years 1978–1979.

Academic positions

All of the following positions, at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem:

  • Lecturer, Institute of Chemistry, (1980–1983)
  • Senior Lecturer, Institute of Chemistry, (1983–1985)
  • Associate Professor, Institute of Chemistry, (1985–1988)
  • Full Professor, Institute of Chemistry, (1988–2016)
  • Professor Emeritus, Institute of Chemistry, (2016–present)
  • Chairman, School of Chemistry, (1991–1994)
  • Head of the Institute of Chemistry, (2007–2010)
  • Head of the Graduate Authority in the Experimental Sciences, (2011–2015)

Founding activities
  • Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Heterogeneous Chemistry Reviews.[2] (1992–1997)
  • Co-founder of Sol-Gel, Inc.[3] (1997)
  • Co-Founder and chairman of the board, The International Sol-Gel Society.[4] (2003–2008)
  • Scientific advisor since its foundation, of the International Institute for "Solution Chemistry of Advanced Materials and Technologies" (SCAMT)[5] at ITMO University, Saint-Petersburg, Russia. (2014–present)

Research

Avnir has more than 400 refereed publications that have been cited over 35,000 times, with an h-index of 80.[6]

Sol-gel materials

The sol-gel methodology allows the preparation of glasses and ceramics at room temperature. Avnir's conceptual idea has been to use this low-temperature polymerization process for the incorporation of organic and bioorganic molecules within ceramic materials. Traditionally this has been impossible for glasses and ceramics, because of the very high temperatures employed by these technologies. Following this general concept, the properties of ceramic materials could be altered to create a very wide range of previously unknown materials, by the ability to dope of glasses and ceramics with practically any of the ~40 million organic and bioorganic molecules known today. The many useful applications include materials for optics, reactive materials, bioactive materials, catalysts and sensors.[7][8][9][10] [11][12]

Molecularly doped metals

The family of doped metals was unknown until discovered and developed by Avnir in 2002. The methodology enables the incorporation and entrapment of small organic molecules, polymers, biomolecules, and nanoparticles within metals, rendering a metal acidic, obtaining luminescent metals inducing magnetism in and formation of bioactive metals.[13][14][15][16]

Chirality and symmetry

The first focal point of this broad topic has been the formation of new chiral materials, that is, materials which can appear in both left- and right-handed forms.[17][18] The second, related focal point has been the quantification of geometric symmetry and chirality: Traditionally these have been treated in terms of "either-or", but not as continuous structural properties that can evolve gradually from zero to fully-blown.[19][20][21] The chirality/symmetry studies went also beyond chemistry, and have included computerized analysis of symmetry, studies of the bilateral symmetry of Lower Paleolithic hand axes,[22] and chirality in architecture.[23]

Fractals

An ongoing major challenge has been the quantitative treatment of complex and irregular geometries in the context of the chemistry of materials and surfaces. A comprehensive solution for that problem was proposed by Avnir and his colleague Peter Pfeifer, by adapting fractal geometry to this challenge.[24][25][26][27] Avnir's edited text-book The Fractal Approach to Heterogeneous Chemistry: Surfaces, Colloids, Polymers (Wiley, Chichester, 1992) became a major source in this field and was reprinted several times.[28]

Dissipative structures

This early work focused on the origin of patterns and structures which form as a result of reactions that solutions of chemicals undergo. Dissipative structures, as such structures are called, have been found for a wide array of different reactions.[29][30]

Awards and recognitions

Kaye Award for Applied Research (1998), The First Mehrotra Foundation Lecture (1998), Award Lecture of the Div. of Colloid and Surface Chem. of the Chemical Society of Japan, (1998), The Kolthoff Award of the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, (2004), The Benjamin H. Birstein Chair in Chemistry (2007),[31] Special issue of Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology, honoring Prof. Avnir (2009),[32] Member of the Academia Europaea (2009),[33] The Israel Chemical Society Prize (2011),[34] Life-time Achievement Award of the International Sol-Gel Society (2013),[35] A collection of articles themed on "Hybrid Materials" dedicated to D. Avnir: Nanoscale, (2014), Fellow of the International Sol-Gel Society (2018), Distinguished Scientist, The Chinese Academy of Sciences (2018).[36]

References
  1. Tilmann Kleinjung (16 September 2019). "Ein Kind der Stunde Null" [A child of the hour zero]. Das Erste. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  2. Heterogeneous Chemistry Reviews
  3. Sol-Gel, Inc.
  4. The International Sol-Gel Society
  5. SCAMT
  6. David Avnir publications indexed by Google Scholar
  7. D. Avnir, D. Levy and R. Reisfeld, "The Nature of Silica Cage as Reflected by Spectral Changes and Enhanced Photostability of Trapped Rhodamine 6G", J. Phys. Chem., 88, 5956–5959 (1984). doi:10.1021/j150668a042
  8. D. Avnir, S. Braun, O. Lev and M. Ottolenghi, "Enzymes and Other Proteins Entrapped in Sol-Gel Materials", Chem. Mater., 6, 1605–1614 (1994).doi:10.1021/cm00046a008
  9. S. Braun, S. Rappoport, R. Zusman, D. Avnir and M. Ottolenghi, "Biochemically Active Sol-Gel Glasses: The Trapping of Enzymes", Materials Lett., 10, 1–5 (1990). doi:10.1016/j.matlet.2007.03.046
  10. D. Avnir, "Organic Chemistry Within Ceramic Matrices: Doped Sol-Gel Materials”, Acc. Chem Res., 28, 328–334 (1995). doi:10.1021/ar00056a002
  11. F. Gelman, J. Blum and D. Avnir, "Acids and Bases in One Pot while Avoiding their Mutual Destruction", Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 40, 3647–3649 (2001). doi:10.1002/1521-3773
  12. David Avnir, Thibaud Coradin, Ovadia Lev and Jacques Livage, "Recent bio-applications of sol-gel materials", J. Mater. Chem., 16, 1013 – 1030 (2006). doi:10.1039/b512706h
  13. H. Behar-Levy and D. Avnir, "Entrapment of organic molecules within metals: Dyes in silver”, Chem. Mater., 14, 1736 – 1741 (2002). doi:10.1021/cm011558o
  14. David Avnir, “Molecularly doped metals", Acc. Chem. Res., 47, 579–592 (2014). doi:10.1021/ar4001982
  15. Leora Shapiro and David Avnir, "Catalyst@metal hybrids in a one-pot multistep opposing oxidation and reduction reactions-sequence", ChemCatChem, 9, 816 – 823 (2017). doi:10.1002/cctc.201601386
  16. Jin He, Botao Ji, Somnath Koley, Uri Banin and David Avnir, "Metallic Conductive Luminescent Film", ACS Nano, 13, 10826−10834 (2019). doi:10.1021/acsnano.9b06021
  17. Sharon Marx and David Avnir, "The induction of chirality in sol-gel materials", Acc. Chem. Res., 40, 768 – 776 (2007). doi:10.1021
  18. Hanna Behar-Levy, Oara Neumann Ron Naaman and David Avnir, "Chirality induction in bulk gold and silver", Adv. Mater. 19, 1207–1211 (2007). doi:10.1002
  19. H. Zabrodsky and D. Avnir, "Continuous Symmetry Measures, IV: Chirality", J. Am. Chem. Soc., 117, 462–473 (1995). doi:10.1021/ja00106a053
  20. Inbal Tuvi-Arad and David Avnir, "Quantifying Asymmetry in Concerted Reactions: Solvents Effect on a Diels-Alder Cycloaddition”, J. Org. Chem., 76, 4973 – 4979 (2011). doi:10.1021/jo200648h
  21. Maayan Bonjack-Shterengartz and David Avnir, "The near-symmetry of proteins", Proteins, 83, 722–734 (2015). doi:10.1002/prot.24706
  22. I. Saragusti, I. Sharon, O. Katzenelson and D. Avnir, "Quantitative analysis of the symmetry of artefacts: lower paleolithic handaxes”, J. Archeol. Sci., 25, 817–825 (1998). doi:10.1006/jasc.1997.0265
  23. David Avnir and Dirk Huylebrouck, "On Left and Right: Chirality in Architecture”, Nexus Network Journal: Architecture and Mathematics, 15, 171–182 (2013). doi:10.1007/s00004-013-0144-x
  24. D. Avnir, D. Farin and P. Pfeifer, "Chemistry in Noninteger Dimensions Between Two and Three. II. Fractal Surfaces of Adsorbents", J. Chem. Phys., 79, 3566–3571 (1983). doi:10.1063/1.446211
  25. P. Pfeifer and D. Avnir, "Chemistry in Noninteger Dimensions Between Two and Three. I. Fractal Theory of Heterogeneous Surfaces", J. Chem. Phys., 79, 3558–3565 (1983); erratum, 80, 4573 (1984). doi:10.1021/j150668a042
  26. D. Avnir, D. Farin and P. Pfeifer, "Molecular Fractal Surfaces", Nature, 308, 261–263 (1984). doi:10.1038/308261a0
  27. D. Avnir, O. Biham, D. Lidar and O. Malcai, "Is the Geometry of Nature Fractal?", Science, 279 (5347), 39 – 40 (1998). doi:10.1126/science.279.5347.39
  28. Wiley, Chichester, The Fractal Approach to Heterogeneous Chemistry: Surfaces, Colloids, Polymers, David Avnir (ed.), 1992
  29. D. Avnir and M. Kagan, "Spatial Structures Generated by Chemical Reactions at Interfaces", Nature, 307, 717–720 (1984). doi:10.1038/307717a0
  30. D. Avnir and M.L. Kagan, "The Evolution of Chemical Patterns in Reactive Liquids, Driven by Hydrodynamic Instabilities", Chaos, 5, 589–601, (1995).doi:10.1063/1.166128
  31. The Benjamin H. Birstein Chair in Chemistry
  32. Special issue of Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology, honoring Prof. Avnir
  33. "David Avnir". The Academy of Europe. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  34. "Prof. David Avnir, awarded by the Israel Chemical Society Prize". 21 September 2018. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  35. "The 2013 Life Time Achievement Award of the International Sol–Gel Society awarded to Prof. David Avnir, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel". Journal of Sol-Gel Science and Technology. 70 (2): 162–163. 2014. doi:10.1007/s10971-014-3358-9. eISSN 1573-4846. ISSN 0928-0707. OCLC 704441918. S2CID 195233426.
  36. "Prof. David Avnir is elected as a Distinguished Scientist by the Chinese Academy of Sciences". 29 January 2018. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
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