The large-scale use of renewable energy, in particular solar energy, requires the development of energy storage technologies to compensate for the intermittent availability of solar radiation. Among all storage methods, the thermochemical storage of energy appears to be particularly interesting due to its high storage density and its potential ability to avoid energy losses. A charge reaction stores the solar energy whereas the reverse discharge reaction gives back this energy whenever it is needed the most. Among the different reactors allowing one to do this for Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), Solar Rotary Kilns (SRK) appear to be particularly promising as they can potentially allow the continuous and uninterrupted storage of energy unlike batch and semi-batch reactors. There are, however, two main aspects that need to be further explored. On the one hand, the modelling of solar rotary kilns is still at its infancy and a realistic understanding of the interaction between granular flow, heat transfer and chemical kinetics has yet to be reached. On the other hand, the construction of a directly irradiated SRK with the possibility of adjusting the solid flow rate to the fluctuating radiance of the sun would be highly beneficial. The purpose of the project MULTITHERMO will be to develop a realistic and physically and chemically sound multiphysics model describing all aspects of heat storage in a rotary kiln and to validate it based on the data from a new prototype of SRK and from an already existing electrical rotary kiln and an already existing rotary drum. It will be mainly based on the reduction of BaO2(s) as a promising heat-storing reaction. This reaction will be also studied during the projetc in order to master its chemical kinetics.

Tools and institutions of international cooperation built up after the 2nd World War seemed to be underperforming when facing global threats on the environment, the importance of which is underlined by many recent scientific reports. International Law must go beyond its traditional purpose of supporting inter-state cooperation since it must now define rules and standards likely to be incorporated into the national legislation to help coordinate, if not harmonise, national environmental legal and policy frameworks. Beyond this remarkable expansion of international Law (some say treaty congestion) these institutions and instruments have been significantly transformed to cope with the above-mentioned threats with some new kinds of expert advice, the development of multilateral treaty making, some new types of norms, the growing role of private actors, and the development of new forms of international control --both public and private. However the global environmental governance remains fragmented. Without a world executive and legislative power, there is a proliferation on the international scene of norm producers and disseminators. The creation of a World Environmental Organisation is still in limbo and it is also disputable whether such an organisation would suffice to integrate the “multiple sites of governance” [Snyder, 2010]. The latter are loosely articulated, among themselves and with the other regulation mechanisms in domains such as trade, investment or human rights and so on, although some research points at the burgeoning architecture mixing or alternating synergy, cooperation and conflict relations between different regimes [Biermann, 2009]. The international governance of the environment was first understood through international regime analysis, where regimes are defined as sets of principles, norms, rules, and procedures, which shape the behaviour of actors in a specific area. In practice this corresponds to international conventions and subordinate treaties. More recently though, it was suggested that these regimes are embedded in some more elaborated settings labelled “regime complexes”. These are made of three or more international regimes addressing some different issues within a common domain, which not only co-exist by also interact on substance or at operational level, without being formally coordinated, and by working alongside with other governance mechanisms involving private corporations and NGOs. On the basis of this conceptualisation that saddles International Law, International Relations, Political Science, Political Economy and Sociology, this research project aims to analyse the enabling conditions, the forms and the impacts of norm circulation within actor networks by focusing on two important regime complexes, biodiversity and climate change. The fragmentation diagnosis being well established, it seems important to analyse these process through actor network analysis and focus on circulation of norms and actors. The core concept here is the “permeability” of the various elements of the regime complex, how circulation takes place and what are the impacts on the complex itself, and beyond on international governance as a whole.

The OPTISOL project aims to increase the competitiveness of solar thermal power plant by increasing the solar conversion efficiency at high temperature in particular through the implementation of combined cycles. The key component of such solar processes is the solar receiver that must delivers air in the temperature range between 700 ° C and 1100 ° C. We propose a breakthrough approach by implementing a porous structures with variable optical properties that have a selective behavior in relation to solar radiation and can thus limit the radiative losses of surfaces and increase heat transfer by convection. The proposed methodology integrates all aspects of the problem since the development of materials to the testing of solar receivers on a scale basis of 5kW through the modeling of volumetric radiative properties and detailed transfer coupling. The target is to increase thermal efficiency of such receptor by 10%.

Despite their major ecological role at the base of the food chain in oceanic ecosystems, the variation in phytoplankton-virus interactions as a function of abiotic factors is under studied. Indeed, efforts have focused on estimating the extraordinary interspecific diversity of these communities populating the surface of our oceans. While previous studies on phytoplankton x virus x environment interactions have analysed the effects of temperature, a key factor of climate change, there is a lack of knowledge about the effect of other abiotic factors, also impacted by global change, such as variations in nutrients and salinity. The objective of the ELVIRA project is to understand how these abiotic factors influence the phytoplankton-virus interaction quantitatively and qualitatively. This is in order to (1) characterize the phenotypic evolution, (2) identify the genomic and transcriptomic bases of these phenotypic changes and (3) establish a predictive model of the dynamics of the phytoplankton-virus system. We propose to deploy an interdisciplinary approach combining population genomics, high-throughput experimental phenotyping and modeling on an ecologically relevant phytoplankton-virus system with a worldwide distribution. In order to meet the ambitious objective of integrating the genome x phenotype x environment levels, ELVIRA brings together an international consortium composed of two French teams and a German team with complementary skills in population genomics, phytoplankton eco-physiology and theoretical biology. The ideal location of the partners in the immediate vicinity of the North, the Baltic and the Mediterranean Seas allows us to take advantage of the natural spatial variation in salinity and phosphate concentration between these sites. This lets us test whether the geographical origin impacts the genomic and phenotypic variation of microalgae isolated from these different environments, including their susceptibility to different viruses from these same sites. The project’s deliverables arise from four tasks carried out in close collaboration between the 3 teams. First, a sampling effort in the North, Baltic and Mediterranean Seas will increase the number of microalgae in the collection previously established by the consortium. This biological resource is the basis of the ELVIRA's genomic resource consisting of transcriptomes and genomes by long and short read technologies for the whole collection. Task 2 will be devoted to high-throughput phenotyping of this collection, with an exceptional exploration of the space of phytoplankton x virus x environment interactions for different conditions of salinity and phosphate concentrations. Task 3 will allow the characterization of the phenotype x genotype linkage through association analyses (GWAS) between the genomic and phenotypic resources obtained. We will first associate nucleotide variants with variations in gene expression between strains (eQTL). Then, we will associate genomic variants (nucleotide and structural) with phenotypes, with particular attention to cases of changes in phytoplankton-virus susceptibility as a function of abiotic variables. Finally, Task 4 will be devoted to the integration of the obtained phenotype x environment space into a multi-host multi-virus epidemiological model in order to predict population dynamics under current and future conditions of salinity and phosphate concentration. We believe the expected results from the analysis of these genome x phenotype x environment interactions in an original biological system will have implications for integrative biology of host-parasite interactions, population and evolutionary genomics, microbiology and integrative molecular-to-ecosystem approaches.