Director
Dott. ANTONINO SALVATORE ARICO'
Email: arico@itae.cnr.it
Phone number: +39 090 624224
Profile
Dr. Aricò has carried out his research work in the fields of hydrogen technologies, including fuel cells and electrolyzers, batteries, solar cells, including photoelectrochemical and photoelectrolysis cells, electrocatalysis, catalysis of energy processes and electrochemical CO2 recycling.
Dr. Aricò''s research papers (>350 ) have been published in leading scientific journals.
According to the acquired experience, he has been appointed as SRG representative of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research for the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU) at the European Commission (H2020 Program).
The specific competences acquired by Dr. Aricò in activities related to research programs, such the H2020 FCH JU, and in the framework of several research projects have dealt with the following areas of expertise:
i) Energy transition with the development of new and advanced energy storage technologies to support a wide diffusion of renewable energy sources in particular the development of electrolysis systems for grid balancing service and advanced batteries for electrochemical energy storage applications in the field of renewable energy.
ii) Energy systems with the development of polymer electrolyte electrolyser for power to gas applications, fuel cell systems for automotive applications and reversible fuel cell systems for back-up service.
iii) Energy technologies covering energy and fuel production from renewable power sources including CO2 recycling through co-electrolysis and catalytic processes.
iv) Low carbon technologies including hydrogen technologies, batteries, and solar cells.
v) Development of non-critical raw materials-based electrocatalysts and semiconductors to address raw materials availability for the new energy technologies
vi) Several EU projects coordinated by Dr. Aricò, have addressed the impact of both circular economy and new energy policy and related socio-economic aspects.
vii) Energy economics have been addressed through techno-economic and life cycle analyses of the studied energy processes. These studies have been published in various international journals and are available to the public through the EU Cordis web platform in terms of deliverable reports for the European Commission.
viii) All the activities carried out in the projects led by Dr. Aricò have thoroughly addressed the aspects of Sustainability and Circular economy with their strong implications on Socio-technical transitions.
This activity is proven by an innumerable series of reports authored by Dr. Aricò available to the public through the Cordis web platform of the European Commission.
The research activity of Dr. Aricò is based on a mixture of basic and applied research, carried out through a multidisciplinary approach. This research has been focused on innovating electrochemical energy conversion technologies through specific knowledge acquired in materials science, micro- and nano-technologies, polymer science and system engineering.
Dr. Aricò has been coordinator and responsible scientifically for several projects including EU projects (11), international projects (3), national projects (8) and industry-funded contracts (16). In particular, he has coordinated four EU projects, three international projects and a national project on fuel cells, electrocatalysis, water electrolysis and power-to-fuel investigating various approaches for coupling renewable power sources with hydrogen and organic fuel electrochemical generation.
The results of these research works have essentially focused on low carbon energy technologies and have been presented at various conferences (>300), several as plenary, invited and keynote lectures (>30).
According to scientometric indexes of the Scopus database, Dr. Aricò has published more than 350 research papers in leading international journals (> 19,000 citations), his h-index is > 60 in Scopus.
Many of his innovative ideas can easily be found especially in the field of renewable hydrogen, fuel cells and electrolysis. His coordination of EU and international projects fuel cells and hydrogen research projects represents also an important contribution to the field.
Dr. A.S. Aricò has been included in the 2016 List of The 150 world Most Cited Scholars in Energy Research by Elsevier Scopus Data.