UMons

The Chemistry-Materials Science Department (FPMs) at UMONS brings together various teams active in the fields of materials, energy and the environment. The 3 teams involved in the project are: Thermodynamics, contact : Guy De Weireld, Materials science, contact:André Decroly, Chemical and Biochemical Process Engineering, contact:  Anne-Lise Hantson.

The first is an expert in adsorption in porous media (purification of gaseous effluents; purification of natural gas and biogas; separations of gaseous mixtures and characterisation of porous solids) and catalytic oxidation (oxidation of VOCs, catalytic conversion of CO2 into fuel : methane, methanol, paraffin) but also in industrial processes (construction of laboratory pilots and sizing of industrial adsorption and catalysis units, energy integration of units, technico-economic calculations and life cycle analyses of processes and products). The second is an expert in reaction kinetics, heterogeneous catalysis and photocatalysis. The third area of expertise concerns the development of bioprocesses to treat various types of organic and mineral pollution in water, soil and air, from the cultivation of microorganisms of interest at different scales to their treatment and use to eliminate pollutants such as metals and VOCs (formaldehyde, BTEX, PAHs) in free or encapsulated form.

Together, these three teams have a variety of equipment for characterising and shaping adsorbents and catalysts, analytical equipment for monitoring the degradation of pollutants in liquid and gaseous matrices, bioreactors and various test benches for measuring the adsorption and catalytic oxidation of VOCs under conditions ranging from laboratory scale to industrial pilot scale (TRL 6) and prototype scale for domestic applications (TRL 7-8).