Doctoral theses

The underground resources valorization is becoming a pragmatic strategy for sustainably meeting renewable energy, minerals, and water needs.

Lithium-sulfur batteries have a five times higher theoretical energy density than state-of-the-art Li-ion batteries. In addition, sulfur is abundant, inexpensive, and low in toxicity. However, the solubility of lithium polysulfides in liquid electrolytes limits the sulfur utilization rate, as well as the number of charge/discharge cycles.

Over the last years, the energy transition has been related with a diversification of technical options, particularly for the mobility of people and the transport of goods.

The PhD project is proposed in the context of the transformation and upgrading of lignocellulosic biomass into platform molecules for the chemical industry. The goal of the project is to prepare new, purposely designed bifunctional zeolite catalysts suitable for the conversion of biomass-based sugars into chemicals.

In geothermal energy, water remediation and underground hydrogen storage, biochemical processes due to bacteria and microbes have a strong impact on the production of pathogens and must be taken into account in the evaluation of contamination risks. This is achieved through the integration of dedicated modules in porous media flow simulators.

Hydrogen production recently became of major interest thanks to the global decarbonation effort lead by transport and energy industries. Methane pyrolysis is a new process competing with the more conventional electrolysis technology. Its main advantages are its lower energy cost and the potential use of its black carbon byproduct.

Development of a symbolic regression method for the formulation of wall laws in CFD

Cold plasma-assisted catalysis is a promising alternative to thermal catalysis, particularly for the activation of poorly reactive gases whose conversion is limited by thermodynamic equilibrium.

Many applications at IFPEN rely on computationally expensive simulators which take scalar variables as inputs, but also functional variables representing, for example, the geometry of mechanical pieces, or spatio-temporal environmental conditions (such as wind).

In the context of growing interest in circular economy solutions, chemical recycling by pyrolysis is a promising way of converting plastic and tyre waste into pyrolysis oil and then back into monomers and/or chemical bases in steam cracking or refining processes.