Doctoral theses

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.

Falling liquid films enhance heat and mass transfers in many systems or processes.

A new approach is emerging, which is expected to change the way we conceive and evaluate the future mobility of people and goods. Whether it will be more electrified, connected, automated, digitalized, or not, will depend on the targets we aim for at specific time horizons: environmental, economic, societal, etc.

In a context of increasingly tight resource management, the hydrometallurgy process is now essential for metal recycling. Hydrometallurgy involves dissolving the various metals contained in a material in aqueous solution, then separating them to recover them.

Electricity markets with high proportions of intermittent Renewable Energy Sources (RES) generation can experience periods of excess supply, resulting in near-zero and possibly negative prices, or energy spilling due to surplus.

In France and Europe, deep decarbonization scenarios aiming to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 rely heavily on direct electrical technologies for thermal and thermodynamic uses of industrial processes. Manufacturing accounts for a quarter of France’s CO2 emissions. There is large number of uncertainties about this transition.

The simulation of reactive transport in porous media is a major challenge for many IFPEN projects, especially in relation to new underground energies such as CO2 sequestration, geothermal energy and hydrogen storage.