Biography

Ovadia Lev is a professor of chemistry at the Casali Center for Applied Chemistry, the Institute of Chemistry and head of Environmental Chemistry Laboratory of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

His research focuses on water and wastewater treatment, development of advanced materials for environmental and green chemistry and the analytical chemistry and electrochemistry of trace organic contaminants.

Current Research Interests

Prof. Lev has contributed to the development of the fields of sol-gel electrochemistry and hydrogen peroxide sol-gel chemistry (including fundamental aspects and applications for lithium and sodium ion batteries), scanning electrochemical mass spectrometry (SCM) and scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM). Professor Lev has been instrumental in providing science-based regulations, such as the Guidance manual for ozone disinfection in the USA, tools for quantification of leakage from Soil Aquifer Treatment systems to nearby drinking water wells, and quantification of wastewater leakage to water sources by quantification of emerging organic contaminants (micropollutants).

Project: Thermal Buffering Materials with High Thermal Conductivity Based on Encapsulated Multifunctional Phase Change Materials

The research relies on two recent achievements that were introduced in the proposer’s laboratories, namely, zinc oxide microencapsulation and the introduction of a new family of yet unexplored PCMs, comprised of transition metal ion – fatty acid coordination polymers. Both technologies are in their early stage of development, feasibility has been proven, but full PCM characterization, definition of the scope of the technologies, and the exploitation of their potential benefits in practical applications have not been attained yet. We shall use these new classes of materials to improve low-T, building façade and roof PCMs, and to improve high–T PCMs for solar generation of low pressure steam (or heated water) for dehumidification of liquid dessicants for air conditioning systems in the tropics. The two end-applications promote the global goal of NEW-CREATE, i.e. improvement of the energy efficiency of buildings in Singapore, the tropics and globally.

Selected Publications

Grishanov D. A., Mikhaylov A. A., Medvedev A. G., Gun J., Nagasubramanian A., Srinivasan M., Lev O., Prihodchenko P. V.
Synthesis of high volumetric capacity graphene oxide-supported tellurantimony Na- and Li-ion battery anodes by hydrogen peroxide sol gel processing. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science 2018, 512, 165-171.

Sopilniak A., Elkayam R., Voloshenko-Rossin A., Lev O.
Emerging organic pollutants in the vadose zone of a soil aquifer treatment system: Pore water extraction using positive displacement. Chemosphere 2018, 190, 383-392.

Dvory N. Z, Kuznetsov M., Livshitz Y., Gasser G., Pankratov I., Lev O., Adar E., Yakirevich A.
Modeling sewage leakage and transport in carbonate aquifer using carbamazepine as an indicator. Water Research 2018, 128, 157-170.

Muduli S. K., Varrla E., Kulkarni S. A., Han, G., Thirumal K., Lev O., Subodh M., Mathews N.
2D black phosphorous nanosheets as a hole transporting material in perovskite solar cells. Journal of power sources 2017, 371, 156-161.

Grishanov D. A., Navasardyan M. A., Medvedev A. G., Lev O., Prihodchenko P. V., Churakov A. V.
Hydrogen peroxide insular dodecameric and pentameric clusters in peroxosolvate structures. Angewandte Chemie 2017, 56, 15241-15245.

Voloshenko-Rossin A., Sladkevich S., Gasser G., Melman A., Lev O.
Sensitive analysis of nitroguanidine in aqueous and soil matrices by LC-MS. Analytical Chemistry 2017, 89, 9990-9996.

Smolianitski-Fabian E., Cohen E., Dronova M., Voloshenko-Rossin A., Lev O.
Discrimination between closely related synthetic cannabinoids by GC-Cold-EI-MS. Drug Testing and Analysis 2017, 1-14.

Sopilniak A., Elkayam R., Lev O.
Quantification of dissolved organic matter in pore water of the vadose zone using a new ex-situ positive displacement extraction. Chemical Geology 2017, 466, 263-273.

Lakshmi V., Chen Y., Mikhaylov A. A., Medvedev A. G., Sultana I., Rahman M. M., Lev O., Prikhodchenko P. V., Glushenkov A. M.
Nanocrystalline SnS2 coated onto reduced graphene oxide: demonstrating the feasibility of a non-graphitic anode with sulfide chemistry for potassium-ion batteries. Chemical Communications 2017, 53, 8272-8275.

Elkayam R., Kraitzer T., Popov V. S., Sladkevich S., Lev O.
High performance of fixed-bed filtration for reagentless oxidative manganese removal. Journal of Environmental Engineering 2017, 143, 04017030.

Medvedev A. G., Mikhaylov A. A., Grishanov D. A., Yu D. Y. W., Gun J., Sladkevich S., Lev O., Prikhodchenko P. V.
GeO2 thin film deposition on graphene oxide by the hydrogen peroxide route: evaluation for lithium-ion battery anode. ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces 2017, 9, 9152-9160.

Chernyshov Y. Y., Vener M. V., Prikhodchenko P. V., Medvedev A. G., Lev O., Churakov A. V.
Peroxosolvates: formation criteria, H2O2 hydrogen bonding, and isomorphism with the corresponding hydrates. Grystal Growth and Design 2017, 17, 214-220.

Zakon Y., Halicz L., Gelman F., Lev O.
Compound-specific bromine isotope ratio analysis using gas chromatography/quadrupole mass spectrometry. Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 2016, 30, 1951-1956.

Dronova M., Smolianitsky E., Lev O.
Electrooxidation of new synthetic cannabinoids: Voltammetric determination of drugs in seized street samples and artificial saliva. Analytical Chemistry 2016, 88, 4487-4494.