Sustainable Catalytic Processes theme
The aim of this strategic area is to design, develop and optimise catalytic processes for the chemical and energy industries of the future.
The products resulting from these processes cover a very wide range of applications that address major societal concerns such as food, health, materials, transport and energy, to name but a few. These processes are intended to be safer, more economical in terms of raw materials and energy, and more respectful of the environment than those currently used.
These scientific innovations will contribute to the fight against climate change by enabling a massive reduction in emissions of compounds that are harmful to the planet (including CO2), and will play a central role in the announced deployment of the bioeconomy on a regional, national and international scale, particularly by establishing themselves at the heart of the biorefineries of the future.
Centrale Lille’s activity within this strategic area is fully in line with HuB 2 ‘Science for a Changing Planet’ of the ULNE (Université Lille Nord-Europe) I-SITE project, as well as with the major scientific, technological and societal challenges of ‘Clean, Secure and Efficient Energy’ and ‘Climate Change & Bio-economy’.
To achieve these objectives, an original and extremely effective approach has been devised. It is based on access to the tools of the ‘REALCAT’ Equipex, based at Centrale Lille. In fact, the use of robotised/paralletised high-throughput screening tools, combined with statistical methods such as experimental design, has led to a spectacular acceleration of discoveries in catalysis. Process development times have been reduced by a factor of at least ten, at constant cost.
The following priorities have been defined for the next 5 years:
- Recovering compounds from non-edible biomass
- Production of clean fuels and energy carriers
- Chemical recovery of CO2
- Chemo-biological hybrid catalysts
To carry out this work, Centrale Lille will rely on its teams from the Catalysis and Solid State Chemistry Unit (UCCS – UMR CNRS 8181) and the Franco-Brazilian International Associated Laboratory ‘Energy & Environment’. The originality of these teams lies in their multi-skill and multi-scale approach, which is very rare within a single laboratory, from the definition of the catalyst on a molecular scale to its implementation in the industrial reactor.
