Improving energy efficiency and integrating renewables and recovered energy to 'green' the energy mix are the two main levers of the energy transition. This implies, among other challenges, optimizing the scale of the unit operation and energy conversion chain, proposing efficient solutions for energy storage, but also developing dynamic management systems for smart grids.

RAPSODEE is particularly focused on: 

• The production of gaseous (syngas, hydrogen, methane, etc.), liquid (pyrolysis oil, tars, methanol, ammonia, and other alternative fuels) or solid (char) energy carriers by thermochemical processes from biomass derived from dedicated cultures, residual biomass contaminated with metallic or organic pollutants, or industrial by-products (carbon dioxide, plastics, solid recovered fuel, etc.)
• The study and optimization of concentrated solar power plants
• The valorization of waste heat (e.g. waste heat present in industrial flue gases) through sensible heat storage processes
• The piloting of multi-energy networks with energy storage to manage the intermittency of renewable energies, using optimization algorithms and/or artificial intelligence

Scientific objectives

To produce energy carriers, optimize the thermal or thermochemical processes, store, distribute and use these renewable energies, the main objectives are to: 

• Characterize local physicochemical interactions and thermal or thermomechanical phenomena in order to identify the transformation mechanisms
• Understand the fate and impact of pollutants during conversion
• Develop active, selective and stable catalysts that are easy to set up for the production of platform molecules (hydrogen, methane, methanol, liquid fuels, etc.) from syngas, biogas and other molecules (carbon dioxide, nitrogen, water, etc.)
• Predict, through modeling, the multiphasic and multi-scale transformations
• Model and simulate the processes studied and the conversion and distribution chains to improve their efficiency