Internship Master: Urban surfaces reactivity with atmospheric pollutants.

Discipline : CERI EE

Line Manager : Nadine LOCOGE

Location : IMT NORD EUROPE, CERI EE, 941 rue Charles Bourseul, 59500 Douai

Type of contract: Master internship, duration 4-6 months.

CONTEXT :

Public establishment belonging to IMT (Institut Mines-Télécom), placed under the supervision of the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty, IMT Nord Europe has three main objectives: providing our students with ethically responsible engineering practice enabling them to solve 21st century issues, carrying out our R&D activities leading to outstanding innovations and supporting territorial development through innovation and entrepreneurship. Ideally positioned at the heart of Europe, 1 hour away from Paris, 30 min from Brussels and 1h30 from London, IMT Nord Europe has strong ambitions to become a main actor of the current industrial transitions, digital and environmental, by combining education and research on engineering and digital technologies.

Located on two main campuses dedicated to research and education in Douai and Lille, IMT Nord Europe offers research facilities of almost 20,000m² in the following areas:

•             Digital science,

•             Processes for industry and services,

•             Energy and Environment,

•             Materials and Processes.

For more details, visit the School’s website : www.imt-nord-europe.fr

Internship in Atmospheric Science

Air pollution is one of the major issues that concern our society nowadays. The intensive human activities related to industrial production, fossil fuel burning for transportation and heating produce a variety of primary and secondary pollutants that degraded the air quality. The air quality degradation is getting more and more important in large cities (i.e. urban environments) where pollutant concentrations often exceed the limits settled by environmental protection agencies. Although significant progresses have been performed by the scientific community along the past decades to improve our understanding about the fate of pollutants, there are still many open questions to be addressed. For instance, there is a significant lack of studies dealing with the interaction/reaction of pollutants with common surfaces existing in cities (e.g. building construction materials, asphalt concrete etc.).

Therefore, the purpose of the internship is to investigate the heterogeneous interaction/reaction of key urban pollutants, i.e. NO2, O3, VOCs, with urban macroscopic surfaces, such as asphalt pavements. The experiments will be carried out inside highly instrumented atmospheric simulation chambers that can mimic the real conditions existing in the atmosphere (i.e. temperature, humidity, sunlight). A wide variety of analytical techniques, including state-of-the-art mass spectrometers (SIFT-MS) and spectroscopic instrumentation (FTIR, various types of analyzers) will be used to monitor in real time the gas phase concentrations of pollutants. Consequently, crucial kinetic parameters (uptake coefficients) and surface properties (surface coverage, partitioning coefficients) will be determined.

The successful candidate should have a strong background in physical chemistry, and mass spectrometric techniques. Good computer skills, knowledge of data treatment software (Excel, Python etc.), motivation and good communication skills will be appreciated. The candidate will have the opportunity to be trained in state-of-the-art analytical techniques and programming languages, and work close to a dynamic international team of researchers.

Candidates should send a motivation letter and a detailed curriculum Vitae, and a reference letter to the supervisors. Dr. Manolis Romanias, Antoine Roose and Anais Lostier.

Expected starting date: January/February 2025

Supervisor: Dr. Manolis Romanias, Antoine Roose, and Anais Lostier,

For further information on the internship, please contact Dr. ROMANIAS Manolis (Emmanouil.romanias@imt-nord-europe.fr, Dr. Antoine Roose (antoine.roose@imt-nord-europe.fr), and Anais Lostier, (Anais.lostier@imt-nord-europe.fr). For any administrative information, please contact the Human Resources Department: jobs@imt-nord-europe.fr

Deadline for submission : 31/12/2024