Course catalogue
Create your own master’s programme by choosing between the different specializations of our partner universities.
Academic Programme
Implemented from September 2025
Chemistry for renewable energy: from advanced research to industrial applications (6 ECTS)
All courses during this semester
- Experimental methods on innovative research infrastructures - 5 ECTS
- Digital Micro-certification "The challenges of sustainable chemistry" - 10h
- Transferable skills : French language & interculturality (3 ECTS)
- Quantum mechanics towars quantum computing (5 ECTS)
- Winter school in Data Science (2 ECTS)
- Organic / Inorganic chemistry towards sustainability (5 ECTS)
- Kinetics and Electrochemistry (5 ECTS)
- Introduction to biophysics and microscopies for life science (5 ECTS)
All courses during this semester
- Luminescence spectroscopy of Lanthanides (3 ECTS)
- Summer School in Entrepreneurship (5 ECTS)
- Transferable skills: Polish course (3 ECTS)
- The molecules of life: from structure to chemical function (5 ECTS)
- Thermodynamics and soft matter (3 ECTS)
- Introduction to solid state (5 ECTS)
- Tech-infused perspectives on photochemical reaction dynamics (6 ECTS)
- Transferable skills: Portuguese course (3 ECTS)
- Summer School in Entrepreneurship (5 ECTS)
- Solid State Physics (5 ECTS)
- Molecular Energetics (3 ECTS)
- Laboratory of Materials and Surface Analysis (5 ECTS)
- Interfacial Electrochemistry (3 ECTS)
- Interfaces, Colloids and Self-Assembly (6 ECTS)
All courses during this semester
- 1-year research project - master thesis (equivalent 45 ECTS)
- Progress assessment of the research project (equivalent 6 ECTS)
- Weekly seminars (equivalent 4 ECTS)
- Special Topics in Chemistry (equivalent 5 ECTS)
- French language courses (3 ECTS)
- Nanosciences (6 ECTS)
- Medical applications of nanomaterials and radiations (6 ECTS)
- Top management, corporate law, and project writing for technology transfer and decision making (4 ECTS)
- Tracking ultrafast radiation-induced reactivity (3 ECTS)
- Applications for renewable energy and storage: solar fuels, batteries and hydrogen (6 ECTS) (6 ECTS)
- Scientific Writing and career objectives (2 ECTS)
- Surface Science and Nanostructuring at Surfaces (6 ECTS)
- Polymers for electronics and energy harvesting (5 ECTS)
- Electrochemical systems for fuel and electrolysis cells and batteries (6 ECTS)
- Project-based laboratory on device building (3 ECTS)
- Italian Courses (3 ECTS)
- Chemistry and Technology of Catalysis (5 ECTS)
Content
Part I : Chemical energy storage at the industrial level
Overview of energy situation, The hydrogen economy, Water electrolysis technologies, Hydrogen purification, transport and storage, Fuel Cells, Other chemical energy vectors
Part II : Recent development toward Artificial Photosynthesis
Using light to store energy within molecules, Hydrogen as a fuel, CO2 as an energy carrier, Dioxygen reduction, Artificial photosynthesis
Aims
Part I: Chemical energy storage at the industrial level
To overview the energy situation, to provide a summary of engineering tools (technical and economical) required for analyzing practical cases, to describe the energy economy, to provide an overview of power-to-gas issues, to provide elements for SWOT analysis, to review other chemical energy vectors.
Part II: Recent development toward Artificial Photosynthesis
To explain how nature succeeds in converting sunlight into chemical energy and how it can be a source of inspiration for chemists, to review some of the enzymes are able to activate very simple molecules and to describe their active site, to explain how molecular catalysts have been designed to equal the activiy of these enzymes, to provide analytic tools (energetics, orbitals, mechanism) to discuss the relation between structure and activity of the molecular catalysts, to review some supramolecular photocatalysts designed by chemists to achieve half of the artificial photosynthesis process, to explain their weakness and strength, to stress on the challenges that yet need to be overcome to achieve a full artificial photosynthesis and thus generate solar fuels in a environmental respectfull way.
Pre-requiste
Inorganic chemistry, Electrochemistry, Chemical kinetics, Thermodynamics, Thermochemistry, Spectroscopy
Recommended Books
- Electrochemistry, C.H. Hamann, A. Hamnett, W. Vielstich, Wiley-VCH, 1998
- PEM Fuel CElls, Theory and Practice, Frano Barbir, Elsevier, 2001
- PEM water Electrolysis, D. Bessarabov, P. Millet, Elsevier, 2017
- Biological Inorganic Chemistry: Structure and Reactivity, Harry B. Gray, Edward I. Stiefel Joan Selverstone Valentine Ivano Bertini, University Science Books: Sausalito, CA, 2007. 739 pp. ISBN 978-1891389436
- Activation of Small Molecules, W. B. Tolman, Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim, Germany, 2006. 382 pp ISBN: 978-3-527-31312-9
- Note: Some basic understanding of EPR spectroscopy is needed and won’t be detailed within this course. Visit this website: http://www.weizmann.ac.il/chemphys/EPR_group/eprcourse
- Electron Paramagnetic Resonance, Victor Chechik, Emma Carter and Damien Murphy, Oxford Chemistry Primers, 2016, ISBN 10: 0198727607
Teaching Staff
Ally Aukauloo
Pierre Millet
Loïc Assaud
Hours
Lecture and Tutorials: 34.5 h
CEA visits: 8h
Grading System
Exams 85%
Multiple choice questions test related to industrial visits 15%