Name: Zain H. Yamani

Title: Director of the KFUPM Interdisciplinary Research Center for Hydrogen and Energy Storage

Brief Research Interests: Development of ‘energy’ related materials, especially for applications like batteries, supercapacitors, chemical sensors and gas separation membranes.

Research Areas: Condensed Matter Physics

Office: 15-3100 (and 6/227)

Tel: 966-13-860-4363

Email: zhyamani@kfupm.edu.sa

Website: Zain Yamani Home-Page (kfupm.edu.sa)

Affiliated Center(s): Interdisciplinary Research Center for Hydrogen and Energy Storage

Research Interests

The Yamani Group works on functionalizing materials for improved qualities in energy applications. Electrodes are developed for low over-potential, stable, cheap water splitting. Other applications include improving redox flow battery materials as well as selective high permeability H₂ separation membranes.

Biographical Sketch 

A graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Ph.D., 1999), Professor Yamani was appointed Director of the KFUPM Academic Improvement Program in 2005. In 2007, he was appointed as the founding Director of the Center of Excellence in Nanotechnology. In 2021, professor Yamani was appointed as the first Director of KFUPM’s Interdisciplinary Research Center for Hydrogen and Energy Storage. Dr. Yamani is currently the Circular Carbon Economy KFUPM Representative with governmental and private organizations. Professor Yamani i founding member of the Saudi Physical Society (SPS). He enjoys “popularizing” science, and had introduced a course into the KFUPM curriculum about “The Physics of How Things Work”. Dr. Yamani has over two hundred publications in refereed international scientific journals, in addition to over thirty patents issued from the USPTO, with others in the pipeline.

AWARDS & HONORS:

Dr. Yamani received a number of awards amongst which was The King Abdul-Aziz Medal of the First Type for his scientific accomplishment, in 2006, and The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Award for Honoring the Inventors and Gifted Ones, in 2017.

KEY PUBLICATIONS 

1-      Ismail Buliyaminu, Md. Abdul Aziz, Syed Shaheen Shah, Zain Hassan Yamani, Linker-free chemical preparation of palladium nanoparticles on aluminum-doped zinc oxide electrodes for electrochemical water oxidation, J Mater Sci: Mater Electron (2022) 33:1337–1351

2-      Syed Shaheen Shah, Md. Abdul Aziz, and Zain H. Yamani, Recent Progress in Carbonaceous and Redox-active Nanoarchitectures for Hybrid Supercapacitors: Performance Evaluation, Challenges, and Future Prospects. Chem Rec. 14 April 2022. https://doi.org/10.1002/tcr.202200018

3-      Safyan Akram Khan, Mohammed H. Al-Jabari, Muhammad Mansha, Shahid Ali, Zain H. Yamani “Hydrophobic, partially hydrophobic, and hydrophilic ZnO@SiO₂ nanoparticles as fluorescent partitioning tracers for oil sensing applications”. Journal of Molecular Liquids 360 (2022) 119505. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molliq.2022.119505  

4-      Aasif Helal, Fatimah Alahmari, Muhammad Usman, Zain H. Yamani, Chalcopyrite UiO-67 Metal-Organic Framework Composite for CO₂ Fixation as Cyclic Carbonates, Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering 10 (2022) 108061.

5-      Syed Shaheen Shah, Md. Abdul Aziz, Emre Cevik, Muhammad Ali, Seyda T. Gunday, Ayhan Bozkurt, Zain H. Yamani, Sulfur nano-confinement in hierarchically porous jute derived activated carbon towards high-performance supercapacitor: experimental and theoretical insights, Journal of Energy Storage, Volume 56, Part A, 1 December 2022, 105944 (2022).