IICE group, July 2012. From left to right : Damien Planté, Laura Berthault, Huy Le-Quoc, Morgan Almanza, Salvatore Miraglia, Nataliya Skryabina, Carla De-Mello, Daniel Fruchart, Simeon Nachev, Patricia De Rango, Laetitia Laversenne, Laurence Lyard, and Marina Shelyapina.
The IICE group (Groupe Intermétalliques et Interstitiels – Conversion de l’Energie) hosts 6 permanents staffs, chemists and physicists (with skills in both crystallography and computing). In the field of materials for energy, the need for more efficient materials and assembly is crucial, in order to reach acceptable environmental and economical cost. The materials should display tailored composition/structure in order to optimize their surface and interface properties and thereby their reactivity (performance). Very often, interplay between their bulk properties and nanostructuring is mandatory.
Most of the materials (bulk, thin films) under investigation in the group are of metallic character based on transition elements and light interstitial species. Thus the fundamental guideline of the team is the study of reaction and transition mechanisms in intermetallics. More particularly, we focus our interests on materials with applications for conversion of energy (storage hydrides, magnetocaloric and thermoelectric materials). Our expertise spans the entire range from synthesis and characterization (structural, physical) to processing and industrial transfer in prototypes or systems.
Those activities, more particularly devoted to functional materials in the domain of energy storage and conversion, are systematically undertaken under relationship with industrials partner In this respect, a specific development resulting from the long and intense practice of metal hydride systems has resulted in the successful launching of the start-up McPhy Energy SA. Our visibility at International level allows us to participate in major European Projects. We have also bilateral international collaborations. At the national scale we are involved in ANR-funded projects, and R&D contracts. On the local scale, the group is strongly involved in the “Institut Carnot – Energies du Futur”.