Post Doc- SmartGel-For-Wood Project - Supramolecular biosourced hydrogels as original formulations of wood preservation treatments

LERMAB (Laboratory for Studies and Research on Wood Materials) is a multidisciplinary laboratory of the University of Lorraine (UR 4370) linked to the INRAE center in Nancy-Lorraine as USC (unit under contract). It is located on two main sites (on the Épinal wood campus and at the Faculty of Science and Technology in Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy), and also has a presence in Longwy in IUT.

It has just over fifty permanent staff, mainly teaching researchers with expertise in different scientific fields (physical and organic chemistry, mechanics, chemical engineering, biology), as well as around forty non-permanent staff (PhD students, post-docs, contract scientists and undergraduate or master's interns).

Drawing on various scientific skills such as biology, chemistry, energy, process engineering, physics, mechanics, and civil engineering, the laboratory develops research related to wood and natural fibers, ranging from the molecular scale to the macroscopic evel of the material, and even to the scale of wood structures.

Chemical products used today for wood protection must fulfil to more and more environmental constraints, such as being of low toxicity in answer to the Biocidal Product Regulation, but also to involve waterborne treatments to limit rejection of volatile organic compounds in the atmosphere. Currently, there is no totally sustainable alternatives to replace creosote or CCA salts for use in class 4 (use outdoor in contact with soil). Most of the proposed formulations contain copper salts in large amounts and different co-biocides. So, the first objective of the SmartGel-For-Wood project, is to improve the sustainability of these formulations by reducing the amounts of copper required, through increased retention within the wood thanks to the gelling network. We propose indeed to explore a new formulation of copper salts using supramolecular hydrogel obtained from bio-sourced gelling agent. The second objective is to understand the mechanism of retention of the hydro-soluble salts thanks to the formation of a gelling network into the wood material. Different microscopic technics will be investigated to study the structure of the supramolecular network of the gel in the wood, but also to cartography the presence of copper in the wood ultrastructure.  The third objective is to compare the interest of using a gelling agent with antioxidant properties comparatively to the use of non-functional gelling agent. This could help to further reduce the amount of copper required by synergistic effect of antioxidant able to inhibit oxidative species produce by fungi during wood degradation.

To summarize, this research is aimed to design supramolecular hydrogels built on low-molecular-weight amphiphilic molecules to formulate copper salts in aqueous solution presenting better retention in the wood structure after impregnation to develop more sustainable and efficient formulations to protect wood against decay.

Organic chemist with experience in hemysynthesis and green chemistry. Experience in characterizing the self-assembly properties and gelling properties  of amphiphilic compounds .Experience in microbiology for antifungal properties and in wood preservation will be appreciate

Hemisynthesis of different gelator from biosourced compounds. Charcactérisation of gels structure by microscopy. Formulation of copper-based wood treatments with different gelators. Durability tests. Leaching tests. Microscopical characterizations of wood treated samples. ICP analysis of copper in wood samples after leaching.