Internship offer

The French Corrosion Institute (IC), consists of a team of 60 technicians, engineers and researchers, based across sites in Brest, St. Etienne, and Lyon. The IC's activities encompass analysis and diagnostics of all types of materials in industrial sectors affected by corrosion: automotive, aerospace, buildings, onshore and offshore infrastructures, energy, shipbuilding, chemical industry, and more. Major French and European industries are involved in the IC’s R&D activities in these fields (with over 50 ongoing R&D projects). The IC also participates in numerous European and international projects and conducts more fundamental research projects in close collaboration with academia.

In the framework of the development of its activities on water electrolysis, IC is looking for a motivated Master student for working in the field of seawater electrolysis. The position is planned for the first semester of 2025 for a duration of 5 to 6 months in the Technopole of Brest, France.

Thesis topic: Water electrolysis is a key-technology in the energy transition that consists of electrochemically splitting the water molecule to produce hydrogen and oxygen. Seawater electrolysis has the advantage of not competing with the limited freshwater resources (used in the other electrolysis technologies). However, there are still many scientific and technical challenges to be tackled. One of them is the protection against corrosion of metallic elements, such as the bipolar plates that connects single cells in a electrolyzer stack, in order to improve the durability of the technology.

Your tasks:

- You investigate the corrosion behavior of various metallic materials with and without protective coatings at different potentials, pH, salinities and temperature using electrochemical techniques such as linear sweep voltammetry, chronoamperometry and impedance spectroscopy.

- You characterize of the coated and uncoated metals in pristine and post-mortem states with the in-house tools (SEM, EDX/WDX, profilometry, Raman spectroscopy, interfacial contact resistance measurements…).

- You analyze the results that you regularly report to the electrolysis R&D leader. You also contribute to the writing of scientific articles for peer-review scientific journals.

Your profile:

- You are carrying out a Master (or equivalent) in a university or in an engineering school in one the following fields: electrochemistry, chemistry, materials science, engineering.

- You have a theoretical knowledge and/or hands-on experience with electrochemistry and/or corrosion.

- You have an interest for the energy transition and strong analytical skills.

- You are a team player and enjoy interacting with scientists of different backgrounds

- You are able to work autonomously in the lab (after a learning phase) with a rigorous mindset (notably concerning safety).

- You have a good command of English and, ideally, of French as well.

Should you be very motivated by this position, feel free to apply even without having a profile perfectly matching the one describe above.