Dr. Lavacchi is a Research Scientist at the Istituto di Chimica dei Composti OrganoMetallici, Italian National Research Council (ICCOM-CNR). His research has been devoted to electrochemistry and the material science of surfaces and coatings. In the latest years his activity has been mainly focused on the development of catalytic nano-structured materials with a special emphasis on their application to the exploitation of biomass derived products in electrochemical devices. In this context he has contributed to the development of "facile" methods for the synthesis of platinum-free electrocatalysts for application in fuel cells, electrolyzers and raw chemical electro-synthesis. The activity resulted in the co-authorship of more than 50 papers in leading international journals and the monograph “Nanotechnology in Electrocatalysis for Energy” edited by Springer.