Doctoral theses

Through various research programs, IFP Energies nouvelles is now strongly involved in the development of bioprocesses to produce biofuels and bio-based chemical intermediates. 

Increasing our scientific and technical knowledge is a vital lever for improving energy systems and reducing our environmental footprint. With this in mind, we propose to develop a technique for simultaneously characterizing the thickness of a liquid film, the flow velocity field within it and that in the surrounding air.

Influence of Coupled Phenomena on Wall Heat Flux in an H2/Air Mixture for Decarbonized Mobility

This thesis is part of the field of the evolution of thermal management of electric propulsion chains, a key element for improving the performance of electric vehicles in terms of power density. Automobile manufacturers are moving towards the use of a “single fluid” for managing the cooling and lubrication of the propulsion chain.

Plastic recycling is a major challenge to combat environmental impact of human activity. IFPEn provides industrial solutions for ecological transition, devising and designing new processes such as plastic chemical recycling process.

In a context of a technological shift towards electric mobility, the main current technological solution is the lithium-ion battery. However, state of the art lithium-ion batteries still lack a sufficient energy density to compete with the internal combustion engine on autonomy.

Understanding and forecasting climate variability is a major scientific challenge, particularly in Africa, which has been recognized by the IPCC as one of the most vulnerable continents to climate change. Of key interest is how temperatures, rainfall, fire activity and soil erosion will evolve with increasing greenhouse gas concentrations.

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC) are one of the preferred technologies for decarbonizing the transport sector, due to their autonomy and ease of recharging. However, their large-scale democratization is hampered by their high cost, which is compounded by their unsatisfactory durability. 

Moving toward less carbonated transportation is a challenge for the society that relies on the electrification of the vehicle fleet, for which batteries performance needs to be better mastered and optimized.

Bubble columns are commonly used in industry for bioprocesses, toluene hydrogenation for hydrogen transport or oligomerization of bio-ethylene... However, predicting the bubble size distribution in a bubble column under specifics operating conditions remains a major challenge for the scientific community.

Lithium-ion batteries are used in various application ranging from wearable electronic devices to electric vehicles with an ever-increasing demand. This increase has led to concern on some metal resources (lithium and cobalt mainly) that are today considered as both strategic and critical.

To meet environmental objectives, one of the main levers is the electrification of the vehicle fleet. This will lead to a sharp increase in the production of Li-ion batteries over the next decade. For environmental and geostrategic reasons, recycling these batteries in Europe will have to be set up.