Réseau Français de Chimie Théorique

Context and project description

Increasingly, modern technology is addressing problems where fluid transport takes place in submicron sized channels, or in pores. The physical laws of transport in such channels are qualitatively different from those that determine bulk flow ; they are poorly understood and, importantly, barely exploited. The aim of the FET NANOPHLOW project is to lay the basis for an entire novel technology where thermal gradients and concentration gradients along nano-sized channels are harnessed to drive devices that have no equivalent on the macroscopic scale. Such gradient-driven surface flows offer a huge scope for fundamental advances with very significant technological implications.

The partners experts in theory and simulation will address complementary aspects related to the fundamental challenges of thermodynamic driving. The broad, theoretical approach will provide a systematic way to go beyond the state-of-the-art macroscopic descriptions of phoresis to capture the effects of the molecular nature of solvent and solute, solute size, solute and surface specificity, solute flexibility, surface wettability and heterogeneity, fluctuations and correlations.

The work in the PHENIX lab (Sorbonne Université, Paris) will focus on molecular aspects, to address surface- and fluid-specific effects on the flows induced by thermodynamic gradients at solid-liquid interfaces. This includes the development of molecular simulation strategies to evaluate osmotic flows, as well as the study of systems investigated experimentally within the NANOPHLOW consortium, such as flow through nanotubes.

Profile

PhD in Physical Chemistry or Physics, with experience in molecular modelling.

Funding

The post-doctoral researcher will be hired by CNRS for 24 months, with starting date as soon as possible, and in any case before January 2019. This research project is funded by EU H2020 project FET NANOPHLOW.

Contact

Candidates can apply by sending their CV (including publication list) and a short research statement by email to Benjamin Rotenberg (benjamin.rotenberg@upmc.fr)