Vincent NICOLAS: Modeling and optimization of heat and mass transfer applied to porous biosourced materials for energy applications

Abstract:
Biosourced materials are emerging as an alternative to petrochemical-based materials, the latter having a significant environmental impact. For several years, the 402 team of the Institut Jean Lamour has been developing biosourced materials for energy applications. These materials are mostly porous, made of resin or carbon, and imply mass and heat transfers during their elaboration or use. The control of mass and heat transfer is therefore essential for their development (expected properties, structure, etc.) and thus for their optimization. Therefore, a numerical approach to simulate the transfers and phenomena existing within these materials has been developed with three objectives:
(i) developing a numerical twin,
(ii) understanding the phenomena and existing couplings and
(iii) optimizing the elaboration processes, formulations or properties of materials.
The work presented during this seminar will focus on three applications. The first one will concern the development of biosourced foams based on tannins (bark extracts); the second one will focus on the use and development of a hydrogen compressor by thermal adsorption drive on activated carbons; and the last one will integrate the development of 3D structures for solar evaporation in order to depollute water. For these three applications, the development and validation of a numerical model will be presented as well as parametric studies to better understand the existing phenomena.