Nantes Université MSCA-PF 2024 - hosting offer at the GEPEA

Cécile Raillard, Professor from the GEnie des Procédés Environnement - Agroalimentaire (GEPEA) at Nantes Université is looking for postdoctoral candidates interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA-PF) in 2024.

• Key words

Photocatalysis, Thermocatalysis, Photothermal synergetic catalysis, Volatile organic compounds

• What is a MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship?

MSCA Postdoctoral fellowships support the career development of researchers for enhancing their individual competence diversification in terms of skills at multidisciplinary level and intersectoral experience. The MSCA-PF grant provides a competitive salary plus mobility and family allowances if applicable, as well as research, training and networking costs. This call to interest concerns the European Postdoctoral Fellowships (12 to 24 months of duration in Europe + optional placement in private sector in Europe of 6 months). For more information: MSCA-PF.

• Team description

The laboratory GEPEA focuses on Process Engineering in response to societal challenges. It aims to contribute to the development of the Factory of the Future and industrial renewal in order to respond to the challenges of environmental, energy and food transitions. The themes developed combine experimental and modelling approaches within a deliberately multi-scale approach, ranging from understanding the mechanisms involved to transposition onto industrial-scale processes. The scientific and technological objectives aim at the development and optimization of processes for simple and optimized management of (bio)resources and the preservation of the quality of life (ecotechnologies for the quality of the air-water environment, material-energy co-valorisation processes for residues or industrial waste, processes for exploiting marine resources and in particular microalgae). The laboratory is based on 5 scientific teams:

1 - Processes for BIORESOURCES

BAM Team: Bioprocesses Applied to Microalgae

MAPS2 Team: Matrices & Foods: Processes / Properties / Structure – Sensory

2 - ECOTECHNOLOGIES

TEAM Team: Water Air Treatment Metrology

OSE team: Optimization – System – Energy

GREEN Team: Energy/material recovery of residues and treatment of emissions

• Profile of the supervisor

Cécile Raillard is Professor at Nantes Université. She carries out her research activities at GEPEA in the environmental engineering field and teaches in the Thermal and Energy Engineering department of the Nantes IUT. More information:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/c%C3%A9cile-raillard-841846194/

• Research project

The sun is the ideal renewable energy source (albeit intermittent) to be harnessed and integrated into catalytic processes to make them more sustainable and cost-effective. The last decade has seen emerging evidence of cooperative effects between thermal and photonic excitations in a large variety of heterogeneous catalysts for a wide span of reactions. The application of this dual-mode excitation to catalysis is a burgeoning area that arouses much hope, driven by the imperative of accelerating reaction rates (shorter processing times) under fixed conditions and/or reaching same efficiency under milder conditions.
Photo-thermo (also named as photothermal) catalysis has been explored in applications that can be framed as common photocatalysis reactions (to reach higher conversions or rates), and traditional thermally-driven catalytic reactions, in which research seeks the economic/environmental benefits of milder operation conditions (temperature, pressure) or the mitigation of the high temperature effects on the catalyst stability (coking, sintering).
In few years, photo-thermo catalysis has become a rapidly expanding research field, with high-prospects results in a wide span of reactions and processes in the field of energy-related applications. In contrary, environmental remediation is a less-scrutinized research field. Most of the recent results concerns the mineralization of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Thermal catalysis is known to require high temperatures to activate the oxygen species, while unaided photocatalysis suffers from fast charge recombination that leads to low photonic efficiencies and oxidation rates still far being practical in targeting industrial applications.

The objectives of this research project are to demonstrate the ability of photo-thermo catalysis to significantly lower the reaction temperature while achieving an efficient mineralization of VOCs. They are to highlight in which extent combined thermal and photonic excitation of the catalysts can reduce or suppress the catalyst deactivation with time on stream.

The ultimate aim is to reduce energy consumption for VOCs treatment in industry, within the broader framework of the ecological transition and the factory of the future.

The project combines several disciplinary aspects, combining materials chemistry, characterization sciences, implementation at different scales via process engineering, modelling and process optimization.

• What are the eligibility criteria?

Candidates must hold a PhD at the call deadline (11 September 2024) and have 8 years maximum of full-time research experience after the PhD.

“Mobility rule”: candidates must NOT have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in France for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before the call deadline.

Candidates can be from any nationality.

Although not an eligibility criterion, a good track record is recommended.

• What’s in it for me?

1. Selected candidate will have access to online training programme and one-to-one proposal preparation sessions with our experienced European Officers.
2. Selected candidate will have the opportunity to come to Nantes for two days in the beginning of July to meet his supervisor and to start working on the writing of the project. The grant awarded for this stay will cover travel, hotel and subsistence expenses for 2 days and 3 nights (up to 1000€ for the EU countries and up to 2000€ for the non-EU countries). Nantes Université does not cover the visa fees.

• I’m interested. What should I do?

If you are interested and have the required background, apply by sending the application form to the European office (europe.drpi@univ-nantes.fr)

More information on the dedicated webpage

Registration for this scheme does not imply automatic funding. Applications will be examined in the light of the MSCA PF evaluation criteria, both by your potential supervisor and by the experienced European Officers. Selected candidates will be ranked and the short-stay grant will be distributed among them within the limits of the available budget.

You should expect feedback for your application by May 31st.

• Brief description of Nantes Université

Nantes Université is a higher education and research institution created in 2022. This new institution has adopted a new University model unprecedented in France by bringing together a university, a university hospital (CHU de Nantes), a technology research centre (IRT Jules Verne), a public scientific and technological institute (Inserm) and higher education establishments (Centrale Nantes, École des Beaux-Arts Nantes Saint-Nazaire, École d’Architecture de Nantes).

Nantes Université is a sustainable and committed institution and one of the driving forces behind societal development. With a global and outward-looking culture, it promotes innovativeness and openness: open science, open research, open education, open innovation. Nantes Université has received the HR Excellence in Research Award and is already involved in various European projects, notably MSCA actions.