Research

I perform my research activities in the Laboratoire de Génie Chimique at the University of Toulouse 3, France.

One generic approach to research a solution to a problem in Chemical Engineering is :

  • to run experiments to identify where are the limiting (and then problematic) phenomena in a processus
  • to run local scale experiments to see the cause and acquire new knowledge on these limiting phenomena
  • to model/simulate the phenomena to understand the mechanism controling the processus
  • to control the consequences and apply new solutions to optimize the process at larger scale
    • approach

    My main objective is to understand and to control how colloidal interactions play a role on transport phenomena on various processes*. Here is some examples to illustrate this research :

  • Pore scale clogging by micrometric particles or microorganisms in PDMS microfluidics devices

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    Bacteria are marked in green and particles in red

    Sendekie, Z. B., Gaveau, A., Lammertink, R. G., & Bacchin, P. (2016). Bacteria delay the jamming of particles at microchannel bottlenecks. Scientific reports, 6, 31471. 

    Sendekie, Z. B., & Bacchin, P. (2016). Colloidal jamming dynamics in microchannel bottlenecks. Langmuir, 32(6), 1478-1488

    Marty, A., Causserand, C., Roques, C., & Bacchin, P. (2014). Impact of tortuous flow on bacteria streamer development in microfluidic system during filtration. Biomicrofluidics, 8(1), 014105. 

  • Lagrangian and Eulerian CFD simulation of the clogging phenomena

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    A collective effect : a colloid alone can not pass through the bottleneck : the repulsion between the colloid and the pore prevents the passage. However, if colloids are arriving behind the first one, they are pulling the first one (thanks to repulsive interactions) and the first particle (here the red one) will pass. The last particles will not be able to pass (alone) the bottleneck.

    Agbangla, G. C., Bacchin, P., & Climent, E. (2014). Collective dynamics of flowing colloids during pore clogging. Soft Matter, 10(33), 6303-6315. 

    approach

    Bacchin, P. (2018). Interfacially driven transport in narrow channels. Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, 30(29), 294001.

  • Model for colloid transport in presence of colloid/colloic and colloid/wall interactions
    • approach

    Bacchin, P. (2017). An energy map model for colloid transport. Chemical Engineering Science, 158, 208-215. 

    Bacchin, P., Glavatskiy, K., & Gerbaud, V. (2019). Interfacially driven transport theory: a way to unify Marangoni and Osmotic flows. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics, 21(19), 10114-10124.

  • CFD simulation of filtration in hollow fiber with solid pressure based modelling
  • The concept of solid pressure : an equation of state to describe processes (filtration, centrifugation, drying ...) dealing with dispersed matter (colloids, nanoparticles, macromolecules ...)
  • A substanable way to operate dead end filtration by accounting for a critical filtered volume
  • Existence of a critical filtered volume (or critical accumulated mass) in dead end filtration
  • Theortical link between critical flux, spinodal decomposition and fouling reversibility
  • An accurate way to determine experimentally a critical flux
  • Consequence of surface interaction between a colloid and a membrane : the existence of a critical flux

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    You can find others videos of experiments and simulations on youtube

    * This question is a kind of new declination of old questions still not fully resolved : “Important areas of physical chemistry such as interfacial phenomena, colloids, clusters and, more generally, De Gennes “soft matter” should be revisited using the system approach and chemical engineering methods. Jacques Villermaux, Future challenges for basic research in chemical engineering Chemical Engineering Science,48 (1993) 

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