• Licence en Sciences Chimiques (Ms in Chemistry), Université libre de Bruxelles, 2004
• Doctorat en Sciences Chimiques (PhD in Chemistry), Université libre de Bruxelles, 2008
• Postdoc School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard, 2008-2009
• Postdoc Dept Chemical Engineering, Yale University, 2009-2010

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Les sujets de mémoire de cette année se trouvent dans ce document PDF.

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Nonlinear chemistry

Multicomponent diffusion

Reaction-diffusion-convection dynamics

Due to concentration and temperature differences across an exothermic autocatalytic traveling front, Rayleigh-Taylor or double-diffusive instabilities can develop when the front travels in a Hele-Shaw cell oriented vertically in the gravity field. In thin layers of solution in contact with air, surface tension effects can in addition come into play. Our research aims at a theoretical understanding of the spatio-temporal dynamics resulting from the coupling between these various hydrodynamic instabilities with the autocatalytic reactions.

Deformation of a chemical front featuring light and hot products in red invading downwards heavy and cold products in blue. Chemical reactions are able to destabilize statistically stable density stratifications (PRL 96, 154401 (2006)) (left: concentration field; right: stream function)	Marangoni-driven flow around an autocatalytic chemical front traveling in a horizontal liquid layer with a free surface

The theme of the project is the modeling of reactive and transport processes in out-of-equilibrium nonideal environments. The strong intermolecular interactions characterizing such systems play an important role in numerous chemical, environmental, and biological phenomena. The first part of the project will focus on transport phenomena, such as multicomponent diffusion in two-phase systems (e.g. liquid-gas) and the natural convection induced by unstable density gradients in the gravity field. With the help of optimization techniques and in close collaboration with experiments, this modeling approach will allow measuring diffusion coefficients in nonideal mixtures. Those values are, indeed, crucial to describe many engineering and environmental processes such as the underground transport of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the context of enhanced oil recovery or carbon sequestration. In the second part, reactive systems will be considered. We will derive a reaction-diffusion-convection model for two-phase nonideal systems in the context of carbon sequestration or reactive interfaces. Nonidealities will be taken into account in the reaction kinetics through empirical activity coefficients as a first step. A second step will consist in establishing an expression for the free energy of the system including intermolecular interactions.

See also: http://www.ulb.ac.be/recherche/presentation/fr-arcrongy.html