News 2018

On September 11, 2018 it is taking place the Master MESC defences at the Energy HUB in Amiens, France. Master students are going to present their exciting thesis works (in the format of presentations and posters) carried out in research institutes and labs all around the world. Prof. Alejandro A. Franco is part of the board of examiners (jury) and is involved in the teaching activities of this Master programme with his lectures-series "Fuel cells and beyond". On September 12, 2018, in the same place, it is taking place the graduation ceremony of the students. MESC consortium involves Universities of Amiens, Toulouse, Ljubljana, Basque Country, Deakin University (Australia) and Drexel University (USA). 

On September 6, 2018, Prof. A.A. Franco is giving a lecture about his ARTISTIC project entitled "Advancing the next generation of batteries through multi-scale modeling: predicting the link between the electrode fabrication parameters and the battery performance". The lecture is taking place in the Symposium "Batteries into the Future: from Advanced Lithium-Ion Systems to Novel Chemistries and Architectures" within the 69th Annual Meeting of the International Society of Electrochemistry taking place on September 2-7, 2018 in Bologna, Italy. In the same conference Prof. Franco is co-organizing the Symposium "Theory: from Understanding to Optimization and Prediction". His PhD student Amangeldi Torayev is also giving an oral presentation in this conference about his research work on pore network modeling of ltihium oxygen batteries.  

On August 30, 2018, Prof. Alejandro A. Franco is acting as an invited jury member of the ERC Interviews Practice ("Oraux Blancs ERC") organized by the Institut de Chimie of CNRS (Paris, France). Together with other colleagues from french universities and CNRS labs also acting as jury members, Prof. Franco is going to attend the presentations of candidates called for an interview in Brussels and asking them questions to mimic the conditions the candidates will find in Brussels. Prof. Franco  strongly benefited from these Practices during his preparation for the interviews for an ERC Consolidator Grant, he obtained in 2017 for his ARTISTIC project. 

On July 27, 2018 it is taking place the publication of Prof. Alejandro A. Franco's ARTISTIC Project website. This project, with a duration of 5 years and funded by the European Research Council, adresses the development of a predictive computational platform of the influence of the electrodes fabrication parameters on the electrochemical performance of lithium ion batteries. Such a platform is devoted to become available online through the project website.

On July 24, 2018, Prof. Alejandro A. Franco is giving an invited lecture at the 12th International Conference on Ceramic Materials and Components for Energy and Environmental Applications (CMCEE 2018) taking place in Singapore. His invited lecture is entitled "A Multiscale Simulation Platform of Rechargeable Batteries Linking Fabrication Parameters with Performance at the Cell Level" where he is going to review the key concepts, approach and first results of his ERC Project "ARTISTIC".

On July 18 and 19, 2018, they are taking place the "Scientific Days", LRCS internal traditional conference when students and postdocs present their latest progresses in the battery research field. Permanent researchers and professors can also present on a volonteer basis. Prof. Alejandro A. Franco is giving a talk entitled "Domesticating the Digesting Duck: An Artificial Intelligence Odyssey" where he is going to present his incoming projects involving the use of machine and deep learning techniques for battery research. His MSc., PhD students and postdocs are also presenting their latest research about the modeling of electrochemical energy storage devices.

On June 25, 2018 Abbos Shodiev is joining Prof. Alejandro A. Franco's ARTISTIC ERC project team for a PhD on the computational modeling of the lithium ion battery electrode fabrication modeling. More specifically, he will work on Lattice Boltzmann techniques in order to simulate the electrolyte impregnation of the porous electrode mesostructures predicted by Coarse Grained Molecular Dynamics. In strong interaction with the project experimental activities, Abbos will contribute at advancing the understanding of the influence of the materials properties on this important fabrication step. Abbos Shodiev was Master MESC student and summer visiting Master student of Prof. Franco's team a couple of years ago, when he worked on the pore network modeling of discharging lithium oxygen batteries.

On June 21, 2018, Prof. Alejandro A. Franco is invited to be member of several Comités de Suivi de Thèse (audition of PhD students aiming to register to the next year of their PhD) at the Unité Matériaux et Transformations - UMET - CNRS UMR 8207, Université de Lille, Lille. The examined PhD students all work in the field of materials.

On June 12, 2018, Prof. Alejandro A. Franco is giving a presentation about his ARTISTIC project in the biannual meeting of the ALISTORE European Research Institute taking place in Bohinj, Slovenia, on June 12 and 13, 2018. Prof. Franco's 30 minutes talk reviews the state the art on the modeling of lithium ion battery electrode fabrication process, introduce ARTISTIC motivations, work packages and first obtained results. ALISTORE European Research Institute is a federative research structure coordinated by CNRS, funded though academic member contributions and the membership fees of several that joined its associated Industrial Club. Such funds allow developing hand in hand, integrated and collaborative research oriented towards medium-term transfer to industry. 

On June 5, 2018, Prof. Alejandro A. Franco is delivering an invited presentation about the ALIBABA project funded by the French Research Agency (ANR) and coordinated by Dr. Marie-Liesse Doublet from Institut Charles Gerhardt of Montpellier. Prof. Franco is representing Dr. Doublet and acted as Work Package leader in this project, adressing the multiscale modeling of lithium ion batteries. The presentation is taking place in the "Energy Transition Conference" organized in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France, by ANR and ADEME. 

Being completed

Being completed

On April 3, 2018, Prof. A.A. Franco (LRCS, Amiens) starts the 2016 edition of his multidisciplinary Université de Picardie Jules Verne Doctoral School Lecture Series on Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics Theory. This Lecture Series aims to teach the PhD students on how to use this powerful theory in their day-by-day scientific work to describe, analyze, understand and predict a large diversity of mechanisms in multiple disciplines, such as physicochemistry, biology and astrophysics. Within a highly interactive and comprehensive approach, including games and quizzes, the lectures aim stimulating the students to think "out of the box" and to develop their creativity within a transversal view of sciences. Prof. A.A. Franco's lectures are enriched with epistemological concepts and practical application exercises, including numerical simulations on cases of interest for the students' PhD thesis. The lecture series includes in particular an introduction to the concepts, formalisms and applications of both first order and high order non-equilibrium thermodynamics, fractal geometry and chaos theory.

This year, the lecture-series includes some practice on the use of the Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics theory to estimate the probabilities of finding life in exoplanets as well as experimentations by using the in house Prof. Franco's Virtual Reality tools.

For more information on this Lecture Series, created by Prof. Franco, see here.

On April 1, 2018, it starts Prof. Alejandro A. Franco's ERC Consolidator Project "ARTISTIC" (Advanced and Reusable Theory for the In Silico-optimization of composite electrode fabrication processes for rechargeable battery Technologies with Innovative Chemistries). Prof. A.A. Franco's project, funded by the European Research Council, is over 5 years with a budget close to 2 million euros. It combines innovative multiscale computational techniques with advanced experimental characterization tools to simulate the fabrication processes of rechargeable batteries. 

Caroline Gaya, PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Alejandro A. Franco at LRCS, is participating in the Hauts de France Region final of the competition "Ma Thèse en 180 Secondes". In this competition, she will present in 3 minutes and in a vocabulary accessible for a wide audience, her PhD topic about experimental characterization and modeling of lithium air batteries. 

On March 27 and 28, 2018, it is taking place the T24 progress meeting of the European H2020 Project "POROUS4APP". The meeting is hosted by Prof. Alejandro A. Franco at LRCS, Amiens, France. This project, being coordinated by LEITAT (Barcelona, Spain), is devoted to the development of a new generation of carbonaceous materials for a wide diversity of applications, including lithium ion batteries and chemical reactors. Prof. A. A. Franco is coordinating the Work Package devoted to the computational modeling.

On March 22, 2018, it is taking place Odile Capron's Public PhD defence at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her thesis is about the modeling and experimental characterization of Lithium Ion Batteries.

Prof. Alejandro A. Franco is acting as referee and member of the board of examiners (jury) àf Odile's PhD.

On February 22, 2018, Prof. Alejandro A. Franco is giving an invited lecture in the Ceremony "Mise en Honeur des Créateurs d'Avenir" organized by the Université de Picardie Jules Verne (UPJV). This ceremony highlights the researchers and professors with outstanding successes in 2017.  Prof. Franco is going to present the objectives and approach behind his "ARTISTIC" project which will be funded with an ERC Consolidator Grant. Attendees include press and personalities such as the UPJV president. 

Yinghui Yin, PhD student under the supervision of Prof. Alejandro A. Franco and Prof. Dominique Larcher (LRCS) is defending her PhD thesis entitled "A Combined Modeling/Experimental Investigation of Lithium Air Batteries".  In her thesis, Yinghui reports advanced multiscale models describing discharge and recharge process on lihtium oxygen batteries, and discusses progress in the understanding of mechanisms from the comparison between modeling results and experimental data. The members of the evaluation committee are Prof. Wolfgang Bessler (Offenburg University), Dr. Fanny Bardé (Toyota Motor Europe), Dr. Fredéric Favier (University of Montpellier), Dr. David Loffreda (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon), Prof. Dominique Larcher and Prof. Alejandro A. Franco.

On February 20, 2018, Prof. Alejandro A. Franco is giving the opening invited lecture in the newly established Flash Public Conferences-series organized by the UFR des Sciences of the Université de Picardie Jules Verne (UPJV). This series consists of lectures taking place every two weeks, of 15 minutes of duration, given by recognized UPJV scientists on their research topic. The lectures are oriented to a wide audience (from undergraduate students to confirmed researchers of other disciplines). The title of Prof. Franco's lecture is "Artificial Intelligence and Virtual Reality as Tools for the Discovery of Future Batteries".

On February 19, 2018, Prof. Alejandro A. Franco is delivering a lecture in the Journée d'Innovation Pédagogique organized by the Service d'Innovation Pédagogique of the Université de Picardie Jules Verne. Prof. Franco is presenting his ongoing project about the use of his in house Virtual Reality tools for teaching Energy Storage. Assisted by his MSc. student Simon Herbulot (co-supervised by Dr. Emilie Loup-Escande, cognitive psychologist at UPJV), the lecture includes a demonstration session.

On February  5 and 6, 2018, it is taking place in Bordeaux, France, the progress and review meetings of the Horizon 2020 European Project "HELIS". These meetings are hosted by SAFT Batteries. This project leads with the development of Lithium-Sulfur Batteries for automotive applications. It is coordinated by Dr. Robert Dominko from National Institute of Chemistry in Slovenia. Prof. Alejandro A. Franco is attending this meeting as the leader of the Work Package on computational modeling, and is presenting the research progresses within this activity. 

On January 30, 2018, it is taking place a get together at LRCS to party the obtention by Prof. Franco of his ERC Consolidator Grant and the arrival of Dr. Da Huo as Assistant Professor at LRCS.

On January 17, 2018, Prof. Alejandro A. Franco is invited to participate in the Round Table on Energy in the opening ceremony of the Quai de l'Innovation, organized by the government of Amiens city.  Prof. Franco is going to discuss the energy challenges for current and future societies as well as the role that scientific research can play to overcome them.

On January 15, 2018, Prof. Alejandro A. Franco is delivering an invited presentation in the Chemistry Department of the Université de Picardie Jules Verne (UPJV) about the ongoing activities within his Innovation Pédagogique project,  on the use of Virtual Reality tools to teach energy storage at the University level.  This project is supported by the Service d'Innovation Pédagogique of the UPJV. Prof. Franco is presenting the status and results of this project in a meeting with such a service on January 18, 2018 at UPJV.

On January 9 and 10, 2018, Prof. A.A. Franco (LRCS, Amiens) delivers an invited tutorial at the IFP School (Rueil-Malmaison, France) within the Master program "EPA" (Vehicles and Sustainable Transport), Speciality on Electrification and Automotive Propulsion. This tutorial (he teaches at IFP School since 2014) is about physical modeling and numerical simulation of lithium ion batteries for automotive applications: the chemistry and the physics behind the operation principles of these batteries are revisited, and practical methods for the implementation of mathematical models in scientific software such as Matlab and Simulink are presented. Furthermore, emerging multiscale modeling techniques, bridging the gap between mechanisms at the atomistic scale and the whole cell behavior, are also discussed. The tutorial includes some demonstrations of the in-house computational software MS LIBER-T being developed at LRCS, and since 2016 practices using Prof. Franco's immersive Virtual Reality software for teaching the operation principles of batteries. 

Alejandro A. Franco,

Full Professor & 

Junior Member of the 

Institut Universitaire de France

E-mail:

alejandro.franco@u-picardie.fr

Phone number:

+33 3 22 82 53 36

Institut Universitaire de France

&

Laboratoire de Réactivité et Chimie des Solides (LRCS)

Université de Picardie Jules Verne - UMR CNRS 7314

HUB de l'Energie, Rue Baudelocque, 80039 Amiens, France

&

Réseau sur le Stockage Electrochimique de l'Energie (RS2E)

FR CNRS 3459

France

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ALISTORE-ERI, European Research Institute

FR CNRS 3104

France