Prof. Enrico Negro
Enrico Negro was awarded a degree in Materials Science by the University of Padova in the Academic Year 2000/2001 with a mark of 110/110 “cum laude” after discussing an original dissertation entitled: “Studies on the passivation of (001) surface reconstruction of Indium Phosphide”. The work was carried out in the laboratory of Prof. R. F. Hicks, in the “Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science” of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). The work was also supervised from Italy by Prof. Antonio Drigo. Dr. Enrico Negro had spent all the A.A. 2000/2001 at UCLA in the framework of the EAP(Education Abroad Program) exchange program between the University of Padova and the University of California.
Dr. Enrico Negro was admitted to the XVII Cycle of the Doctoral School in Materials Engineering of Trento University. Since November 2001 to January 2005 he carried out his doctoral studies in the Department of Materials Engineering of the University of Trento under the supervision of Prof. Gianantonio Della Mea and Prof. Alberto Quaranta. He was awarded his doctoral degree “cum laude” on January 28th, 2005 after discussing a final dissertation entitled: “Production and characterization of materials for the preparation of optical gas sensors”. During this period the research activity of Dr. Enrico Negro was focused on the study of the optical properties of polymeric materials, and how they are changed after exposure to volatile organic compounds.
Dr. Enrico Negro was responsible of the preparation of the polymeric materials, which could also have been doped with dye molecules; furthermore, he has designed and assembled the system to carry out the optical measurements in the presence of controlled amounts of the desired volatile organic compound. During his doctoral studies, Dr. Enrico Negro has also worked in the National Laboratories of Legnaro (LNL). In this institution he has prepared the polymer materials to be studied, also relying on plasma-assisted deposition techniques.
Dr. Enrico Negro has been working since April 2005 in the Department of Chemical Sciences of the University of Padova under the supervision of Prof. Vito Di Noto. Since then, Dr. Enrico Negro has participated to several projects dealing with the preparation and characterization of functional materials for fuel cells, with a particular reference to proton-conducting polymer electrolytes based on Nafion and to anodic and cathodic carbon nitride-based electrocatalysts. In particular, Dr. Enrico Negro has implemented techniques for the chemical and “ex situ” electrochemical characterization of the electrocatalyst materials; he has also used the functional materials developed during the research activity in the assembly of single prototype fuel cells fed with either hydrogen or alcohols, which were later tested in operative conditions.
In January 2011 Dr. Enrico Negro was awarded a two-year scholarship for a senior research associate position funded by the University of Padova, in order to carry out research on the topic: “Synthesis, characterization and single-cell testing of advanced nanostructured electrocatalysts for application in low-temperature fuel cells”.
Dr. Enrico Negro is author or co-author of 44 scientific papers published on international journals, 3 book chapters, 9 national patents, 3 international patent, 7 papers on the proceedings of international conferences, 50 contributions to international conferences.