The goal of this work is to design and implement a series of microreactors to study the formation of biomorphs [1, 2] and the interactions between rocks and fluids, involving minerals and solutions present in the primordial Earth’s crust. The reactors must be designed to allow automated monitoring of reactions through optical microscopy and ensure close contact between a petrographic film and a saturated alkaline solution, possibly in the presence of methane and/or carbon dioxide. The microreactors must be equipped with temperature control between 20 and 80 degrees Celsius and gas probes to enable precise monitoring of the conditions of the injected solutions.

The mission will primarily take place at the Chemical Engineering Laboratory in Toulouse. The experimental setup to be developed will be installed in one of the laboratory’s experimental chemistry rooms, within an enclosed atmosphere-controlled environment, which will also be specifically designed and built for the experiment.

Activities:

• Selection and study of materials for manufacturing the microreactor and probes for its instrumentation.
• Design and setup of the microreactor and its environment (injection systems, monitoring).
• Development of a user-friendly system for automating experiments and interfacing with the various elements of the experimental setup.
• Participation in setting up 2 replicas of the microreactor in foreign laboratories.
• Writing reports and participating in project progress meetings.

Framework:

This offer is part of the European ERC Synergy PROTOS project “The role of silica in the dawn of life on our planet”, in collaboration with the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and CSIC in Spain, the University of Bremen and the University of Hannover in Germany, and the Stichting Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands.

References:

[1] García-Ruiz, J. M., Melero-García, E., & Hyde, S. T. (2009). Morphogenesis of self-assembled nanocrystalline materials of barium carbonate and silica. Science, 323(5912), 362-365.

[2] Kellermeier, M., Cölfen, H., & García‐Ruiz, J. M. (2012). Silica biomorphs: Complex biomimetic hybrid materials from “sand and chalk”. European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, 2012(32), 5123-5144.