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TEACHING

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RESEARCH

PROFILE

Silvia Franz, born in 1975 in Milano, Italy, studied physical chemistry at the University of Milano (M. Sc. in 1999, 110/110), continued her graduate studies on applied electrochemistry at Politecnico di Milano (Ph.D. degree in 2005, Magna cum laude) under the mentoring of Prof. P.L.Cavallotti. In 2002 she was guest scientist at EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne, Switzerland), working on anti-wear coatings obtained by pulse-plating under the mentoring of Prof. D.Landolt. In 2003 and 2004 she was guest scientist at IBM T.J.Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights (New York) working on electrochemical-mechanical polishing of copper for chip interconnections, under the mentoring of Dr. L.Romankiw, Dr. P. Andricacos and Dr. H. Deligianni. In 2005-2007 she was a Post-Doc. on development of optical devices based on self-assembled nanostructured materials obtained by electrochemical techniques at Politecnico di Milano. In 2008 she joined the Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering faculty of Politecnico di Milano as assistant professor.

Awards & Honors

• IBM Corp. Ph.D. fellowship award (2002)
• Prize of the Italian Society of Chemistry (2005)
• Prize of the Italian Society of Chemistry (2011) (granted to master students tutored by Silvia Franz)
• Alessandro Volta Prize by the Istituto Lombardo Accademia di Scienze e Lettere (2011) (granted to master students tutored by Silvia Franz)
• Poliefun (2018) (granted to master students tutored by Silvia Franz)

Research interests

• Surface engineering and applied electrochemistry
• Electrochemical methods for surface engineering
• Electrochemical metallization
• Anodization processes
• Electropolishing
• Development of electrochemical catalysts for water treatment and water splitting
• Thin films, corrosion and structure-property relation
• Surface characterization by electrochemical methods, electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, X-Ray fluorescence/diffraction and others

Patents

• E.Barzi, M.Bestetti, S.Franz “Synthesis of superconducting Nb-Sn”, U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/190,199, file July 8, 2015. Submitted to United States Patent and Trademark Office, date of submission: 07/07/2016.
• M.Bestetti, F.Brunella, S.Franz, “Tessuti intessuti metallici o metallizzati funzionalizzati con biossido di titanio nanostrutturato (Metallic fabric functionalised with nanoporous titanium oxide)”, Italian Patent Office Stage: Internazionale. Publication date: 12/09/2006. Code: CH.06.005.A.
• H.Deligianni, L.Economikos, D.C.Edelstein, S.Franz, B.S.Haran, M.Krishnan, A.P.Mansson, E.G.Walton, A.C.West, “Method and compositions for electrocemical-mechanical polishing” No. 11/038,236 United States Patent and Trademark Office (2005), to be extended to Taiwan.

Teaching

• 2017- Professor of “Electrochemical technologies for water and wastewater treatment”
• 2015- Professor of “Laboratorio tecnologico progettuale: nanotechnology and surface treatment”
• 2011-2014 “Seminars on science and technology of Materials”  at the Ph.D. School of Materials Engineering
• 2009-2013  Professor of “Physical chemistry of materials”
• 2006-2008  Lecturer on “Electropolishing” at Italian Association of Metal Finishers
• 2005 -2006 Teaching assistant, “Structure and Properties of Metals” and  “Metals Science”

Other information

Member of the International Society of Electrochemistry and of the Electrochemical Society.

I have served as a reviewer, in particular for: Surface and Coatings Technology, Electrochimica Acta.