Building the Next Generation of Climate and Energy Solutions - Advisor Spotlight on Dr. Bracha Halaf
Bina’s network empowers Weizmann researchers to translate scientific excellence to real-world application, transforming breakthroughs into impactful opportunities.
One of Bina’s key advisors is Dr. Bracha Halaf ,former Chief Scientist of Israel’s Ministry of Energy.
Bracha brings Bina a rare combination of deep scientific training and hands-on involvement in national-level decision-making, early-stage investment, and innovation management.
She earned her PhD in Biophysics at the Weizmann Institute of Science in the laboratory of Prof. Ziv Reich and went on to hold influential roles across Israel’s most strategic scientific and technological arenas - serving as a scientific advisor at the Ministry of Energy, ultimately becoming the Ministry’s Chief Scientist.
In these positions, Bracha operated at the intersection of science, long-term technological and commercial evaluation, and public policy - translating scientific insights into actionable frameworks and assessing their systemic, economic, and regulatory implications. As part of this work, she oversaw major public investments across academia, startups, and industry, helping steer technologies from concept to national-scale relevance.
Bracha’s subsequent experience in venture capital and as a co-founder of the Gravity Climate Fund adds a critical entrepreneurial and investor lens to Bina’s network. She understands why some early technologies gain traction while others struggle to move forward, and is deeply focused on channeling innovation toward meaningful, purpose-driven solutions in today’s rapidly changing world.
As Bracha notes:
“The next Climate and Energy Technological winners won’t be just ‘green’ - they will be system-level enablers of the next industrial era.”
Through her work with Bina, Bracha helps drive exceptional science beyond the bench
Initiatives accompanied by Bracha include the development of a novel, sustainable soil platform for optimizing the growth of agricultural crops through projects aimed at reducing polluting plastics.
Bracha’s added value lies in her expertise in connecting scientific insight with business considerations while viewing the full system.
She guides projects across all dimensions - from understanding current industrial processes and waste streams, to the factors that drive commercial adoption. This includes considerations such as material costs, feasibility, and scalability, through mapping the market and regulatory environment in which solutions must operate.
A notable success story is an initiative for revolutionizing lithium battery recycling, which started at the Department of Molecular Chemistry and Materials at the Weizmann Institute, when a leading Principal Investigator proposed an innovative chemical process to Bina.
The scientists developed an efficient and environmentally clean recycling process. The project’s end-to-end development and evaluation were subsequently led by Bina’s project manager, Dr. Reut Mashiach, in close collaboration with Dr. Bracha Halaf, with a focus on assessing its potential beyond the laboratory and the technical, commercial, and regulatory requirements for successful deployment.
Interestingly, regulation was identified as a market driver: emerging mandates require industrial manufacturers to recycle a minimum percentage of lithium, with strict penalties for non-compliance.
Bridging the innovation gap: turning brilliant science into the next-generation solutions the world needs
This unique chemical process for recycling was further developed to address the need to replace today’s existing methods, which are both costly and rely on the use of extreme temperatures or harsh acids and bases.
Today, the technique has reached a validated proof of concept and is currently undergoing business evaluation for potential integration by one of the world’s leading automotive groups, led by YEDA - Technology Transfer Company of Weizmann Institute of Science.
Bina, supported by experts such as Dr. Bracha Halaf, advances a diverse pipeline of deep-tech innovations toward application and impact. Stay tuned as we bring them to light.
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