Ali Eftekhari

Ali Eftekhari (born August 29, 1979 in Tehran, Iran) is a professor of chemistry and director of Avicenna Institute of Technology, Berkeley, California. ^[1]

He is one of the founders of Electrochemical Nanotechnology, and Editor of a leading book entitled Nanostructured Materials in Electrochemistry^[2] published by Wiley-VCH, and also an Editor of Journal of Nanomaterials.^[3]

He is involved in different branches of science, as can be judged by a brief survey of his technical publications. He is also known for his contributions to philosophy of science (see for example references in Wikipedia, e.g., in Ludwig Boltzmann and Ilya Prigogine). There is a great influence on his career from earlier works of Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann and Belgian chemist Ilya Prigogine.

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Fractals Everywhere

One of the most active area in Eftekhari's scientific works is focused on the concept of fractal geometry developed by Benoit Mandelbrot in 1980s. Ali Eftekhari applied fractal to different aspects of science.

Fractal Electrochemistry

In a series of papers, he adapted the basic ideas for fractal analysis of electrochemical systems.^{[4][5][6][7][8]} Based on novel approaches and correction of common mistakes in fractal analysis of electrode surfaces, he adopted a new application of fractal geometry in the realm of electrochemistry and for study of electrode surface fractality.

Electrochemical Reactions

In a paper^[9] he showed that processes can be considered as fractals. In this theory it is possible to calculate fractal dimension for any process. Practically, he proposed a feasible technique for the estimation of the fractal dimension of electrochemical reactions. This mathematical factor can be used for the improvement of electrochemical reactions, e.g. in fuel cells.

Literature and Texts

In a different content, he utilized the concept of fractal geometry to analyze texts.^[10] Once again, in a seminal paper he applied the concept of fractal geometry for analysis of William Shakespeare's works. He found that fractality of literature is a measurable factor. For the case of Shakespeare's works, the fractality can be categorized according to some factor like the manuscript length, the type of writing (e.g. tragedy, comedy, etc). This theory was demonstrated by comparing the results with similar statistical methods. This finding can provide a new opportunity for mathematical analysis of the literature.

Nanotechnology

Carbon Nanotubes

Some carbon nanotubes are grown using a ceramic catalyst support. There are manufacturing and waste disposal problems associated with acid treatment to remove the ceramic-based catalyst support like MgO, SiO2, alumina, etc. Eftekhari and his co-workers developed a method for mass production of carbon nanotubes. Tused water-soluble catalyst support to replace common ceramic-based catalyst supports.^[11] By this action, it is possible to avoid acid treatment and reach a production yield of about 3,000%. Another advantage of this novel method could be to control the shape of the carbon nanotubes by varying the catalyst support mixture.^[12]

Electrochemical Power Sources

5V Lithium batteries

Lithium batteries are used as power sources for electronic devices such as cell phones, laptops, etc. Since its introduction by Sony in 1991,^[13] lithium battery is restricted to the cell potential of 3.6 - 3.8 V (commercially called 4 V lithium batteries) due to the limitation of Li anode potential. Construction of 5 V lithium batteries could yield higher power density batteries, and thus smaller devices. In 2004, Eftekhari fabricated an all-solid state lithium battery with 5 V potential.^[14]

Philosophy of Science

Ludwig Boltzmann

Ludwig Boltzmann is the center of philosophy of science in Eftekhari's works. He has written a variey of papers^[15], ^[16] to emphasize the priority of Ludwig Boltzmann's philosophy of science.

Ilya Prigogine

He also respected Ilya Prigogine as a famous scientists of his time. He involved in the physical and social aspects of Prigogine's works. He was also on the position to write the obituary of Ilya Prigogine.^[17]

Scientific Aspects of Peace

Ali Eftekhari discussed the necessity for peace based on solid arguments based on statistical mechanics and theromodynamics following the scientific works of Ludwig Boltzmann and Ilya Prigogine (see for example A. Eftekhari, Let Us All Hope for Peace! – Prigogine’s Works and Sociology, Persian Heritage, 2005, 11 (1), 47 - 48; and similar articles).

References

Bibliography

• Eftekhari, Ali (2007). Nanostructured Materials in Electrochemistry. Wiley-VCH. ISBN 3-527-31876-3.