Tag Archives: Binyamin Netanyahu

China and Israel make big nanotechnology plans

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A recently launched $300M China-Israel project seems to signal a new intimacy in relations between the two countries. From a May 25, 2014 article by Ruthie Blum for Israel21c.org,

The launch of a $300 million joint research project between Tel Aviv University and Tsinghua University in Beijing has the academic communities and political echelons in both countries buzzing.

The opening of the XIN Center was announced at Tel Aviv University in mid-May amid great fanfare. The name is a play on words; “xin” means “new” in Chinese, and in English the “X” coupled with the “in” can stand for cross-innovation, cross-intelligence and/or cross-ingenuity.

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The endeavor, to be funded by government and private sources, will initially focus on nanotechnology, with an emphasis on medical and optics applications, and later branch out into fields such as biotech and energy.

So far, nearly a third of the money has been raised for the project, which will involve recruiting research fellows from among the best and brightest of the graduate students of both universities to work in tandem (and fly back and forth) to develop products for eventual commercialization.

To raise the rest of the money, an investment fund is being established by Infinity Group, Israel’s largest investment firm, to seed ventures initiated by XIN fellows.

According to Blum, the deal is the outcome of a trip,

The idea for the ambitious program began inauspiciously, during a trip by Israeli scientists to meet with their counterparts in China.

“The project started bottom-up in Beijing,” said Klafter [TAU President Joseph Klafter]. “We fell in love with one another.”

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… language is not the main gap between the Israeli and Chinese students. As both Hanein [Prof. Yael Hanein, head of the Tel Aviv University Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology] and Jining [Tsinghua University President Chen Jining]  pointed out, it is the cultural differences that are the most pronounced – and also a positive contrast that can be mutually beneficial.

“The Israelis are less obedient than the Chinese,” observed Hanein.

“The Israelis challenge authority,” said Jining. “And the Chinese bring harmony. The two groups learn from each other and create a balance.”

Jining added that though Tsinghua University collaborates with other academic institutions around the world, “This is the first that is so in-depth. We see it as a vehicle for nurturing future leaders of innovation – for cultivating and training a new generation of entrepreneurs.”

Israel’s Prime Minister, Binyamin (Benjamin) Netanyahu provides an economic perspective,

“China is Israel’s largest trading partner in Asia and fast becoming perhaps Israel’s largest trading partner, period, as we move into the future,” Netanyahu said during a meeting with Vice Premier Yandong at his office in Jerusalem following the XIN launch in Tel Aviv.

There are more details in a May 20, 2014 article written by Niv Elis & Victoria Kezr for the Jerusalem Post,

The first round, which will focus only on nano-technology, will recruit only seven advanced degree students from Tel Aviv University and 14 in China this summer.

While governments are pitching in some money for the $300m. price tag, the universities will seek private donations for the rest.

Israel’s Infinity group set up $16m. fund, comprising investors from Chinese industries and Tsinghua University alumni to help foot the bill.

The Jerusalem Post article mentions this opening, which took place on the same day,

Also on Monday [May 19, 2014], students and delegates from across the globe gathered to see Vice Premier of The People’s Republic of China Lui Yandong speak at the inauguration of the Confucius Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Confucius Institutes have been established at universities around the world by the Chinese Ministry of Education to promote the learning of Mandarin Chinese and Chinese culture.

This is the second such institute, following the founding of Tel Aviv University’s Confucius Institute in 2007.

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“The institute in Tel Aviv is for basic Chinese teaching. Here in the Hebrew University they have East Asian studies and they’ll be cooperation with that. Here there’ll be advanced study of Chinese history and culture,” said 21-year-old student Noa Yang, who not only helped organize the event but also sang during the ceremony.

Both the XIN Center and the new Confucius Institute are part of a much larger initiative according to the Jerusalem Post article,

The initiatives are the latest in a wave of cooperative agreements between Israel and China, not just in education, but also politics and business.

In September [2013], Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa received a $130m. grant from the Li Ka Shing Foundation to build an academy called the Technion Guangdong Institute of Technology as a joint venture with China’s Shantou University.

Blum’s article mentions yet another project, an agricultural technology incubator (Note: A link has been removed),

More recently, as ISRAEL21c reported in early May, a joint-venture agricultural technology incubator is slated to be built in Anhui Province, China. It will operate under the auspices of Trendlines Agtech, a specialized investment unit of Israel’s Trendlines Group, which supports early-stage, promising medical and agricultural technology companies in Israel.

These kinds of cooperative efforts are part of a comprehensive plan by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to strengthen economic and technological ties with the People’s Republic. It was the impetus for his trip to China last year [2013].

Both these articles indicate that China and Israel are, as noted in the beginning of this post, developing more intimate relations both cultural and economic.

ETA May 28, 2014: JTA.org published a May 28, 2014 news item about a new Israel-China publication (Note: Links have been removed),

Introducing the Times of Israel Chinese on Wednesday [May 28, 2014], Times of Israel founding editor David Horovitz said in a column that it “focuses on the evolving high-tech and innovation areas of the Israeli-Chinese relationship.”

He added, “It also dips into Israeli culture and society, giving Chinese readers insights into Israel beyond the spheres of business and high-tech.”

You can find Times of Israel Chinese here but you will need Chinese language reading skills to fully appreciate it.

Renewable, green alternative to oil from Israel’s Ben Gurion University

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A November 20, 2013 news item on Nanowerk features a new technique for creating an alternative fuel developed by researchers at Ben Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) in Israel,

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have developed an innovative process to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen into a renewable alternative for crude oil, which could transform fuels used in gas and diesel-powered vehicles and jets.

The “green feed” crude oil can be refined into renewable liquid fuels using established technologies and can be transported using existing infrastructure to gas stations. The highly efficient advance is made possible in part using nanomaterials that significantly reduce the amount of energy required in the catalytic process to make the crude oil.

A November 13, 2013 BGU news release provides more detail,

As opposed to other alternative fuel sources, such as electric cars, which require additional infrastructure, this green feed would merely replace oil as the input for refineries. [Moti] Herskowitz, the incumbent of the Israel Cohen Chair in Chemical Engineering, is also the VP & Dean of R&D at BGU.  [sic]

The process is patent pending, “and we are ready to take off,” demonstrate and commercialize it, asserts Herskowitz. Bench experiments have been conducted and scale-up should be relatively simple, he says. …

“It is an extraordinary challenge to convert carbon dioxide and hydrogen to green feed,” he says, “The technology is based on novel specially tailored catalysts and catalytic processes. Well-established, commercially available technology can be directly applied to the process developed at BGU. It is envisaged that the short-term implementation of the process will combine synthetic gas produced from various renewable and alternative sources with carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Since there are no foreseen technological barriers, the new process should become a reality within five to ten years,” he says.

Noting that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has made it clear that one of the national priorities of the State of Israel is to develop alternatives to oil, Herskowitz believes that, “As technological breakthroughs, such as carbon dioxide capture from various sources including air and water splitting, become technologically and economically feasible, this process will become the dominant technology for production of liquid fuels.”

Regarding other alternative fuels, Herskowitz maintains that his invention represents a game-changer. “The liquids that have been used over the past decade are ethanol (alcohol), biodiesel and/or blends of these fuels with conventional fuels, as will continue to be done in the foreseeable future. These alternatives are, however, far from ideal, and there is a pressing need for a game-changing approach to produce alternative drop-in liquid transportation fuels by sustainable, technologically viable and environmentally acceptable (in terms of GHG emission) processes from abundant, low-cost, renewable materials,” he says.

The Blechner Center for Industrial Catalysis and Process Development has a proven track record of commercializing applications from its basic research. It developed the Aleol product line of fine aroma chemical products which Makhteshim-Agan has set up Negev Aroma at Neot Hovav to produce.

The news item on Nanowerk offers a brief description of the technology developed at BGU<

The BGU crude oil process produces hydrogen from water, which is mixed with carbon dioxide captured from external sources and synthetic gas (syngas). This green feed mixture is placed into a reactor that contains a nano-structured solid catalyst, also developed at BGU, to produce an organic liquid and gas.

For anyone who’d like some additional information and an Israeli perspective on this work, there’s a Nov. 19, 2013 article by David Shamah for The Times of Israel (Note: Links have been removed from the excerpt),,

While everyone agrees that alternatives to fossil fuels are needed, currently available alternatives require such a major an adjustment in manufacturing and social infrastructure so as to render the whole project untenable.

Besides, said Professor Moti Herskowitz of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, even if the world could be convinced to replace internal combustion engines in cars and trucks with engines that run on electricity, methanol, or other gasoline replacements, there remains one major problem. “If you notice, no one ever discusses alternative fuels for jets. No one wants a problem in the air, which makes jet fuel irreplaceable right now,” Herskowitz said.

Considering the fact that over 10% of crude oil is used for jet fuel, it appears that refined oil is going to be around for a long time.

If you can’t beat ‘em, then join ‘em, says Herskowitz. …

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“It is envisaged that the short-term implementation of the process will combine synthetic gas produced from various renewable and alternative sources with carbon dioxide and hydrogen,” he [Herskowitz] said at the event. “Since there are no foreseen technological barriers, the new process should become a reality within five to ten years.”

The main issue at this point, said Herskowitz, is developing a cheaper way to extract the hydrogen gas. The technology to do this is well-known, and hydrogen is used to power cars, buses and trucks in many places, but current extraction methods are not cost efficient. The most promising method to produce large quantities of hydrogen at a commercially viable price, said Herskowitz, lies in splitting water (hydrogen and oxygen), extracting the hydrogen component as a gas, and pushing it into the green feed. “We are positive we can do produce hydrogen more cheaply,” Herskowitz said.

Acquiring the carbon dioxide needed for the process, he said, was sadly, very simple, as that pollutant, found in smokestack emissions from refineries, and power, steel and cement plants, is all too common.

Does this method of producing gasoline have a chance against Big Oil? After all, there are plenty of urban legend-type stories about oil companies suppressing methods that claim to turn water into gasoline. …

I recommend reading Shamah’s article for the context he provides about the issues surrounding the use of alternative fuels.