Chemical engineering and process engineering

IFPEN is a global leader in the development of catalysts and processes for clean fuel production. For these processes themselves to be eco-efficient1, it is necessary to optimize the coupling of catalysts with the operating conditions, as a function of the feedstocks used and the target specifications for the refined products. It is therefore useful to be able to draw on predictive models for the performance achieved, and machine learning can help improving these models...

Numerous catalytic processes employ fixed trickle bed reactors due to their many associated advantages. Simple to use, they demonstrate good performances in terms of bringing gases, liquids and solids into contact with each other. Nevertheless, a number of complex phenomena are involved and recourse to computational fluid dynamics is required in order to understand them. Research conducted within the framework of a PhD thesis delivered results in line with observations.

High-throughput experimentation (HTE) reactors are more and more used in chemical engineering for catalyst screening because they have many advantages. Nevertheless, the behavior of these reactors varies significantly depending on certain parameters (such as the ratio between the diameter of the reactors and that of the particles). Itis important to fully understand this type of dependence to ensure optimal operation of the catalytic processes. A PhD thesis led to the definition of a calculation chain capable of accounting for the behavior of these catalysts.

The market for biobased alcohol is currently largely focused on the production of ethanol for use in biofuels. C3 and C4 alcohols are platform molecules for biobased chemistry, but their development is hampered by low productivity levels...

In catalytic processes, an active phase is necessary to accelerate the transformation of the molecules in the fluid treated. Most of the time, this catalytic agent is placed on a porous support with a large internal surface area, making it possible to host a large number of active sites within a small volume...

Employed in certain treatment equipment, such as industrial gas purification columns, structured packings are ordered stacks of corrugated metal sheets that promote contact between the gas and a