POAT-CO2-V - Plasma-driven Oxygen Atom Transfer for CO₂ Valorisation

PRISM programme

The PRISM (PhD Research Programme for International Training in Sustainable Soft Matter) programme has launched its first call for applications, offering up to 14 fully funded PhD fellowships starting from 1 March 2027 at Paris Sciences & Lettres (PSL) University. The programme trains researchers to address ecological transition challenges through sustainable soft matter science, with projects focused on eco-friendly chemical processes, circular economy, renewable energies, and carbon capture, storage, and valorisation. Co-funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe MSCA COFUND (Grant Agreement 101261637) and partner institutions, PRISM provides interdisciplinary, international, and intersectoral training, including mobility opportunities, secondments, and courses in sustainability, innovation, entrepreneurship, career development, and transferable skills.

Applications must be submitted only via the PRISM website (https://prism.psl.eu/en/) between 1st September to 31 October 2026 (23:59 Paris time).                                                                    

The PhD project

The “plasma, Processes, Microsystems” (2PM) group at Chimie ParisTech-PSL, headed by Prof. M. Tatoulian, is an internationally recognised pioneer in the integration of plasma activation within continuous-flow chemistry, with major advances in the optimisation of plasma–liquid interactions and the design of flow plasma reactors. The 2PM group is a member of the Pierre-Gilles de Gennes Institute for Microfluidics (IPGG), a national Labex of excellence (https://www.institut-pgg.fr/), giving access to cleanroom and micro/nanofabrication facilities to design and fabricate our own gas–liquid plasma reactors. This expertise underpins two deep-tech spin-offs co-founded from our research group: Energo (in 2018), which converts CO₂ and biogas into green methanol (https://energo.green/), and Plaskimia (in 2026), which industrializes plasma flow chemistry for fine-chemical synthesis and financially supports the POAT-CO2-V project (https://www.plaskimia.com/). The doctoral project will thus be carried out in close collaboration with both spin-offs, offering the PhD candidate a rare research environment where cutting-edge science translates directly into industrial innovation, with direct exposure to technology transfer and industrial scale-up alongside frontier academic research, and a genuine opportunity to help shape the future of electrified, sustainable chemical manufacturing. This ambition is grounded in a scientific challenge central to both academic research and industrial practice: oxygen atom transfer (OAT: the insertion of an oxygen atom into organic substrates). OAT plays a central role in industrial and pharmaceutical chemistry, yet calls for more sustainable technologies. Among the most challenging transformations are the epoxidation of C═C double bonds^[1] and the hydroxylation of C─H bonds.^[2,3]  Industrial oxidation processes typically rely on radical mechanisms, suffering from limited selectivity, over-oxidation and difficulty in activating less reactive substrates. While hydroxylation of activated benzylic C─H bonds is industrially mature, with yields exceeding 95% for p‑terephthalic acid,^[2] it remains challenging for more demanding reactions. A key example is the oxidation of cyclohexane into cyclohexanol and cyclohexanone (KA oil),^[3] essential intermediates for adipic acid and ε‑caprolactam in nylon production. This air/cobalt-catalysed process suffers from low selectivity (70–80% at only 4–5% conversion) and high energy input.^[3]

More sustainable strategies, electrochemical^[4] and photochemical^[5] routes using O₂ or water, have also been explored, but generally show limited activity or selectivity for industrial use.^[4,5]

In that context, cold plasma technology offers a promising alternative: it generates highly reactive oxygen species, enabling more selective reactions with substrates while minimising energy losses and unwanted side reactions. At the 2PM team, non-thermal plasma has been successfully applied in biphasic gas–liquid segmented flow microreactors.^[6] This configuration enables a small inter-electrode gap, facilitating plasma formation in the gas phase while enhancing mass transfer with the liquid phase. The POAT-CO2-V project aims to integrate plasma-assisted OAT into these optimised flow conditions to further enhance performance.

Beyond direct oxygenation, the POAT-CO2-V project also explores carbon circularity through the valorisation of CO₂-derived methanol, produced by ENERGO’s non-thermal plasma conversion of CO₂ and biogas. This opens circular chemical value chains, where low-value carbon streams are upgraded into useful intermediates. Methanol can then be upgraded into high-value products within the same plasma–flow framework: cold plasma enables catalyst-free esterification of carboxylic acids with methanol, with applications in flavour, fragrance and fine chemistry.^[7] In this perspective, CO₂-derived methanol becomes a versatile C1 building block rather than an end product.

Overall, the plasma–flow platform developed at 2PM represents a versatile and unifying approach for both selective oxygenation of challenging substrates and efficient valorisation of CO₂-derived methanol. By combining oxidation chemistry with C1 feedstock upgrading, the POAT-CO2-V project opens the way to a fully electrified, decarbonised chemical production chain and a broader vision of sustainable, plasma-enabled molecular manufacturing.

REFERENCES                      

^[1] R. Ghosh et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc. 147 (2025) 1482 ; doi : 10.1021/jacs.4c08948

^[2] R. A. F. Tomás et al., Chem. Rev. 113 (2013) 7421 ; doi : 10.1021/cr300298j

^[3] M. Stucchi et al., ChemCatChem 18 (2026) e00225 ; doi : 10.1002/cctc.202500225

^[4] M. Xu et al., ACS Catal. 15 (2025) 3928 ; doi : 10.1021/acscatal.4c05576

^[5] Y.-D. Shan et al, ACS Catal. 15 (2025) 14713 ; doi :10.1021/acscatal.5c01245

^{[6] a)} J.Wengler et al., React. Chem. Eng., 3 (2018) 930 ; doi : 10.1039/C8RE00122G ^b) P. Dedieu et al., Lab Chip, 24 (2024) 3898 ; doi :10.1039/D4LC00315B ^c) V. Dupont et al., Chem. – Eur. J., 29 (2023) e202301666 ; doi : 10.1002/chem.202301666 ^d) F. Bruel et al, Green Chem., 27 (2025) 11857 ; doi : 10.1039/d5gc02405f ^e) P. Dedieu et al. Chem. – Eur. J., (2026) in press ; doi : 10.1002/chem.71101

^[7] G. R. Warne et al. Innovative Food Sci. Emerging Technol. 95 (2024) 103726 ; doi : 10.1016/j.ifset.2024.103726

3i dimensions

INTERNATIONAL: Plasma-assisted CO₂ conversion and plasma–liquid chemistry are highly active research fields worldwide, and the 2PM team is well integrated in the international plasma-processing community. The compulsory international secondment (at least one month) will take place in the group of Prof. Daniel Bonn at the Institute of Physics of the University of Amsterdam (Netherlands), a world-leading laboratory in soft matter and fluid dynamics. The hydrodynamics of the gas–liquid segmented flow is a key parameter of the plasma reactor: film thickness, slug stability and interfacial area directly govern discharge initiation and mass transfer of the reactive oxygen species. During the stay, the PhD student will study the hydrodynamics of gas–liquid flows using ultra-high-speed imaging available in Amsterdam, and will benefit from the group’s expertise to design new gas–liquid reactor geometries, which will directly feed the optimisation of the segmented-flow plasma reactor developed in Paris. The student will also present the work at international conferences (ISPC, Flow Chemistry Europe) and contribute to joint publications, consolidating a long-term collaboration between the two groups.

INTERSECTORAL: The project has a strong intersectoral dimension through two industrial partners of the PSL ecosystem. ENERGO develops plasma-based conversion of CO₂ and biogas into methanol; its CO₂-derived methanol will be used in the project as a C1 building block, anchoring the work in a real industrial value chain. Plaskimia, the second spin-off of the 2PM team, is industrialising plasma flow-chemistry technology and offers a natural route towards scale-up and technology transfer of the project results. The targeted applications – KA-oil intermediates for the polymer industry, esters for the flavour and fragrance sector, and fine-chemistry synthons for pharmaceuticals – address explicit industrial needs. A secondment of the PhD student with one of the industrial partners is foreseen, and patentable results will be protected through PSL technology-transfer structures, giving the project a significant innovation potential.

INTERDISCIPLINARY: The project is intrinsically interdisciplinary, combining: (i) plasma physics – generation and diagnostics of non-equilibrium discharges (electrical characterisation, optical emission spectroscopy) to identify and quantify the reactive oxygen species; (ii) fluid physics – hydrodynamics of gas–liquid segmented flows (film thickness, slug stability, interfacial dynamics) studied by ultra-high-speed imaging in collaboration with the group of Prof. Daniel Bonn (Institute of Physics, University of Amsterdam), a world expert in soft matter and fluid dynamics; (iii) chemical engineering – design and modelling of segmented-flow microreactors, including mass-transfer and residence-time analysis; (iv) organic chemistry – mechanistic study of oxygen-atom transfer (epoxidation, C–H hydroxylation, esterification) and product analysis (GC, GC-MS, NMR); and (v) green and sustainable chemistry – energy-efficiency assessment and integration of CO₂-derived methanol into circular carbon value chains. The PhD student will thus be trained at the crossroads of physics, chemistry and process engineering.

Salary

The PRISM programme offers a competitive salary above the national average for PhD candidates in France to attract and support excellent researchers. Doctoral candidates will receive an approximate net monthly salary of €2,200, with additional family and mobility allowances available for eligible fellows. The salary is subject to French income tax, with the exception of the family and mobility allowances. Depending on the candidate's individual tax situation, income tax may represent approximately 2–5% of the net salary and is levied by the French tax authorities independently of the employer. To ensure consistent management and equal employment conditions across the programme, all PRISM doctoral candidates will be employed by ESPCI Paris, regardless of the host laboratory where their research is carried out.

Employer’s benefits

Remote working opportunities, access to sports and leisure activities, free access to public Paris city council’s swimming pools, access to CROUS canteen, scientific campus in central Paris, professional development programs, well-being workshops, social benefits through CNAS, partial health insurance support, and 75% support for sustainable mobility.

Name of the school of PSL

ENSCP - PSL (Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie Paris)

Research Unit

Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris (UMR 8247, IRCP)

The Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris (IRCP, UMR 8247) is a joint research unit of Chimie ParisTech-PSL and CNRS, covering molecular chemistry, materials science and process engineering. The PhD will be hosted by the 2PM team at IPGG institute, whose research lies at the interface between non-thermal plasma chemistry, microfluidics and flow chemistry. 2PM has pioneered gas–liquid segmented-flow plasma microreactors for the selective, catalyst-free functionalisation of organic substrates (oxidation, amination, fluorination) under mild conditions, leading to high-impact publications, patents and the creation of the spin-off company Plaskimia. The team combines skills in plasma physics and diagnostics, chemical engineering, organic synthesis and analytical chemistry, and operates a complete experimental platform: microreactor design and fabrication and online GC, GC-MS and NMR analysis, together with scale-up (numbering-up) capabilities.

Supervision

Supervisor: Dr Alain Favre-Reguillon alain.favrereguillon@chimieparistech.psl.eu

Co-supervisor: Dr Stéphanie Ognier stephanie.ognier@chimieparistech.psl.eu

Co-supervisor: Prof. Daniel Bonn D.Bonn@uva.nl

Co-supervisor: Prof. Michael TATOULIAN michael.tatoulian@chimieparistech.psl.eu

All projects are open PhD projects, meaning that the research plan will be further developed collaboratively by the selected doctoral candidate and the supervisors.

The candidate should hold a Master's degree (or an equivalent 5-year engineering degree) in organic chemistry or chemical engineering. A background in organic chemistry and/or analytical techniques (GC, GC-MS, NMR) is expected, together with a strong interest in process development; prior experience in flow chemistry or microfluidics, would be an asset, but no prior expertise in plasma processes is expected. As plasma training is offered by very few programmes worldwide, full training in plasma technology will be provided during the PhD. The project is highly experimental: the candidate must enjoy hands-on laboratory work, reactor assembly and instrumentation, and demonstrate autonomy, scientific rigour and curiosity for interdisciplinary research at the physics/chemistry/engineering interface. A good command of written and spoken English is required (international secondment, conferences, publications); knowledge of French is not required (language support and integration assistance could be provided). Team spirit and the ability to interact with our industrial partners of the project (ENERGO, Plaskimia) will complete the profile.