Doctoral theses

The earth’s system is a key provider of energy through its constant release of heat. In most continental areas of our planet, this heat is limited; the thermal gradient is about 30°C/km in most sedimentary basins, and even lower in cratonic areas.

Extreme climatic events such as heavy rainfall or periods of drought can induce changes in the landscape morphology and soil composition. In particular, they can cause mudslides, soil depletion or silting up of watercourses in the absence of suitable facilities. It thus appears crucial to anticipate and prevent these phenomena.

The geochemical composition of water can have a strong impact on the viability of geothermal resource exploration. Depending on its elements, it can cause scaling or corrosion problems or on the contrary, present opportunities for the recovery of co-products such as Lithium.

Plastics, which appeared more than a century ago, have gradually established themselves in a multitude of applications thanks to their interesting properties and their low cost.

In the context of the energy transition, Negative Emissions Technologies (NETs) gain interest each time CO2 atmospheric concentration is measured, as there is no decrease nor even stabilization of this concentration expected in the next years. These NETs are technologies that remove carbon from the atmosphere and sequester it.

Technologies focused on decarbonization of the electricity and transport sector (wind, solar, electric vehicle batteries, etc.) will mobilize a significant quantity of metals in the coming decades.

This thesis focuses on a global economic and strategic thinking of the deployment of hydrogen at the global level. It has 3 parts. First, it will study the diffusion of technologies and the deployment of renewable and low-carbon hydrogen at the global level by 2050.

The environmental impact of the public policies implemented so far in the field of transport remains mixed, with GHG emissions from this sector still representing 30% of national emissions. In addition, some of these policies are the subject of strong mistrust on the part of citizens (e.g. the movement of yellow vests).

The control of alumina support textural properties is a very important task in the framework of innovative catalytic material manufacturing. Mass transport in the porous medium is strongly affected by the micro-structure and could decrease  the impregnation efficiency of the active phase and the resulting catalytic activity.

In the context of complex fluid process development (bio-process, water treatment, material synthesis, plastic recycling), a thesis is suggested in order to study and model the local shear distribution in mixing unit for Reynolds numbers in between 2000 <Re<20000.

Recycling of PET polymer through chemical recycling routes has attracted a great deal of interest in recent years, to cope with plastics streams not handled by classical industrial PET mechanical recycling routes.

Biofuels as well as bio-based chemicals production represent a major transition to reduce our dependence on fossil resources.