ED Sciences Chimiques
Solvothermal processes for direct recycling of lithium-ion batteries: an integrated assessment of performances and environmental impacts
by Insaf GAALICH (ICMCB - Institut de Chimie de la Matière Condensée de Bordeaux)
The defense will take place at 14h00 - Amphithéatre A ENSMAC 16 Avenue Pey-Berland 33607 Pessac
in front of the jury composed of
- Philippe LOUBET - Maître de conférences - Bordeaux INP - Directeur de these
- Peggy ZWOLINSKI - Professeure des universités - Grenoble INP - Rapporteur
- Alexandre CHAGNES - Professeur des universités - Université de Lorraine - Rapporteur
- Bernard LESTRIEZ - Professeur des universités - Polytech Nantes - Examinateur
- Caroline MIR - Docteure - ADEME - Examinateur
- Gilles PHILIPPOT - Maître de conférences - Université de Bordeaux - CoDirecteur de these
- Jacob OLCHOWKA - Chargé de recherche - CNRS - Examinateur
- Cyril AYMONIER - Directeur de recherche - CNRS - Examinateur
Li-ion batteries have become a key technology for electrochemical energy storage, especially in the field of electric mobility. However, their rapid growth raises two major challenges: increased dependence on critical raw materials such as lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite, whose extraction carry environmental impacts, and the management of growing volumes of production scrap and end-of-life batteries. In this context, direct recycling, which aims to recover active materials without chemical decomposition, emerges as a promising strategy to reintroduce these materials in a closed loop. This thesis evaluates the potential of solvothermal processes, based on the use of supercritical fluids, for the direct recycling of Li-ion battery electrodes materials. The central question is: to what extent can these processes combine experimental efficiency, environmental relevance, and industrial feasibility to be sustainably integrated into a circular battery value chain? In this context, life cycle assessment (LCA) is the standardized and most widely applied methodology, to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with all life cycle stages, including battery recycling. First, a critical review of the literature, with a focus on LCAs of solvothermal processes was conducted. This analysis highlighted the frequent absence of systematic environmental evaluations for processes often labelled as “green,” and identified key eco-design levers, including energy consumption, solvent selection and use, and by-product valorisation. The experimental work then focused on developing a direct recycling process for NMC (LiNi1-x-yMnxCoyO2) positive electrodes, using production scrap as a case study. Experimental performances validated in previous studies were consolidated with an LCA, which confirmed the environmental benefits of this closed-loop approach compared to alternative treatment scenarios. The process was then adapted for negative electrodes, with a particular emphasis on graphite recovery. Experimental adjustments enabled the treatment of both production scrap and end-of-life electrodes, providing insights into the influence of graphite degradation. The associated LCA integrating the valorisation of graphite, copper, and residual lithium, revealed more contrasted environmental benefits than for positive electrodes, while underlining the strategic importance of graphite recycling, still scarcely studied despite representing up to 18% of cell mass. Finally, a prospective approach was undertaken to assess the industrial integration of solvothermal processes. At the scale of a complete cell and a gigafactory, the analysis examined the influence of scrap rates and the potential environmental benefits of direct recycling, while accounting for infrastructure amortization. In parallel, a sensitivity analysis explored various intrinsic parameters (treatment capacity, energy intensity, recovery yield, material quality) and extrinsic factors (electricity mix, infrastructure lifetime), in order to identify future improvement levers and eco-design strategies. In conclusion, this work demonstrates that direct recycling through solvothermal processes represents a relevant and adaptable option to support the development of a circular battery value chain, provided that sufficient volumes are available and eco-design efforts continue to enable pilot, and ultimately industrial-scale deployment.
ED Sciences de la Vie et de la Santé
Study of molecular and metabolic factors involved in glioblastoma invasion and recurrence
by Mathieu LARROQUETTE (Institut de Biochimie et Génétique Cellulaires)
The defense will take place at 14h00 - Salle de conférence IBGC 1 Rue Camille Saient-Saëns 33077 BORDEAUX Cédex
in front of the jury composed of
- Thomas DAUBON - Directeur de recherche - Université de Bordeaux - Directeur de these
- Natacha ENTZ-WERLE - Professeure des universités - praticienne hospitalière - Hôpitaux Universitaires de Strasbourg - Rapporteur
- François DUCRAY - Professeur des universités - praticien hospitalier - Hospices Civils de Lyon - Rapporteur
- Marie-Pierre JUNIER - Directrice de recherche - INSERM - Examinateur
- Emeline TABOURET - Professeure des universités - praticienne hospitalière - APHM - Examinateur
Glioblastomas (GB) are the most common and most aggressive malignant tumors of the adult central nervous system. To date, targeted therapies and immunotherapy, which represent major innovations in oncology, have shown no efficacy against GB. Despite a trimodal management combining surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy, the prognosis of these tumors remains poor. In order to identify new potential therapeutic targets, we focused on tumor metabolism. Using preclinical models, we demonstrated the efficacy of mubritinib, a drug targeting oxidative phosphorylation, a metabolic pathway exploited by aggressive glioblastoma stem-like cells. The efficacy of this treatment appears to correlate with the mitochondrial (MTC) subtype of glioblastoma, and its tolerance in mice is acceptable, making it a potential candidate for further evaluation in clinical trials. We also investigated the transcriptomic profile of paired GB samples from tumor core and periphery, and showed in a patient cohort that tumor-enriched peripheral samples display an upregulation of invasion-related pathways. More specifically, we identified CNTN2, a protein involved in axonal guidance, as being overexpressed in tumor periphery and in recurrent tumors. CNTN2 inhibition in spheroid models reduced tumor invasion, highlighting this gene as a potential therapeutic target. GB cells are in close contact with their microenvironment, in particular with neurons, which are able to form synaptic connections with them and promote tumor growth. Since GB cells are known to secrete lactate, we hypothesized that neurons might uptake and metabolize this lactate, similarly to the astrocyte–neuron lactate shuttle observed under physiological conditions. To test this, we established a murine neuron culture model, and showed in vitro that GB cells in contact with neurons display enhanced metabolic plasticity. Neurons, in turn, exhibit increased intracellular lactate levels and appear to enhance their respiratory capacity when interacting with GB cells. These in vitro results paved the way for a translational project aiming to investigate the spatial metabolic profiles of primary and recurrent glioblastomas in a patient cohort at Bordeaux University Hospital.
Neurobiological and hormonal mechanisms of sex differences in alcohol intake and cocaine relapse in rodents.
by Claudia FORNARI (Institut de neurosciences cognitives et intégratives d'Aquitaine)
The defense will take place at 14h30 - Amphithéâtre bâtiment Bordeaux Biologie Santé Bâtiment Bordeaux Biologie Santé 2 rue Dr Hoffmann Martinot 33000 Bordeaux France
in front of the jury composed of
- Céline NICOLAS - Chargée de recherche - Institut de Neurosciences Cognitives et Intégratives d'Aquitaine (INCIA) - Directeur de these
- Anne-Noël SAMAHA - Professeure - Université de Montréal - Rapporteur
- Liana FATTORE - Chercheuse senior - Istituto di Neuroscienze - Rapporteur
- François GEORGES - Directeur de recherche - Institut des Maladies Neurodégénératives (IMN) - Examinateur
- Fuschia SERRE - Chercheure - Laboratoire SANPSY - Examinateur
- Stéphanie DAUMAS - Professeure - Institut de Biologie Paris Seine (IBPS) - Examinateur
Addiction is characterized by persistent drug use despite negative consequences and a high risk of relapse, two major obstacles to its treatment. Clinical and preclinical studies reveal sex differences in alcohol consumption and cocaine relapse, however, the underlying neurobiological mechanisms remain to be understood. In the last decade, alcohol use disorders (AUDs) prevalence increased in both sexes, but more dramatically in women, highlighting the importance of studying sex-specific mechanisms. Thus, the first aim of my thesis was to study the sexually dimorphic functions of the insular cortex in persistent alcohol intake despite aversion. We showed a higher persistent ethanol intake in females compared to males. Fiber photometry recordings revealed that anterior insula (aIC) activity increased during persistent ethanol intake independently of sex, and the chemogenetic inhibition of the same neuronal population reduced persistent drinking regardless of sex. In contrast, during persistent ethanol intake, posterior insula (pIC) activity was higher in females compared to males, and inhibition of this neuronal population reduced persistent ethanol intake only in females. Altogether, our results show an antero-posterior and sex -dependent function of the insula in persistent ethanol drinking in mice. In the context of cocaine relapse, sex differences have been shown to depend on the hormonal cycle, and progesterone is identified as a potential protective factor. The second axis of my PhD deciphered the behavioral and neurobiological mechanisms underlying progesterone's effect on cocaine relapse. We demonstrated that females with low progesterone levels have a greater level of relapse than those with high levels, confirming a protective role of this hormone. Additionally, acute progesterone injection protected vulnerable females from relapse by reducing the number of neurons expressing the activity marker c-fos in the pIC and the central amygdala (CeA). Finally, relapse levels positively correlate with c-fos+ neurons in the pIC and CeA, and progesterone abolished this correlation. Our results provide a basis for understanding neuronal mechanisms of progesterone-dependent relapse vulnerability.
ED Sciences Physiques et de l'Ingénieur
Spatiotemporal data fusion : an application for proximal sensing images analysis in viticulture
by Vu Hoang Ha PHAM (Laboratoire de l'Intégration du Matériau au Système)
The defense will take place at 9h00 - Amphi JP Dom Laboratoire IMS, Batiment A31 351 Cours de la Libération, 33405 Talence Cedex, France
in front of the jury composed of
- Jean-Pierre DA COSTA - Professeur - Bordeaux Sciences Agro - Directeur de these
- Edith GABRIEL - Directrice de recherche - INRAE, Unité BioSP - Rapporteur
- Fréderic COINTAULT - Professeur - Institut Agro Dijon - Rapporteur
- Olivier LAVIALLE - Professeur - INRAE Campus de la Grande Ferrade - Examinateur
- Christian GERMAIN - Professeur - Bordeaux Sciences Agro - Examinateur
Agricultural fields are subject to numerous processes that manifest as strong spatial and temporal variability, whose continuous monitoring is essential to ensure sustainable crop management. This monitoring is now facilitated by digital technologies, among which onboard imaging plays a key role. Using imaging sensors, it is possible to measure agronomic variables of interest either resolved in time - through fixed sensors distributed across the plot - or in space - through mobile sensors mounted on agricultural machines, robots, or drones. However, the individual use of these data sources raises challenges, such as the optimal placement of fixed sensors or the scheduling of mobile acquisitions. The aim of this thesis is to examine the relevance of combining these data, i.e., time series collected by fixed sensors and maps obtained from mobile sensors: by what methods can these data be fused? Does this fusion enable the reconstruction of the spatio-temporal variability of the field? And what level of spatial and temporal sampling effort is required? To address these questions, this dissertation focuses on the case of vineyards and selects leaf area as the variable of interest. Two approaches are implemented: (i) a data simulation whose protocol accounts for several factors of spatio-temporal variability (phenology, variability in resources and plant material, measurement error), allowing full control and the exploration of multiple sampling scenarios; (ii) an experiment conducted on a vineyard using images acquired in 2024 with fixed sensors (Vinelapse) and mobile sensors (Proxicam) developed by the research team. Three methods are proposed for data fusion, stemming from different methodological paradigms: inverse distance weighting interpolation (STIDW, a deterministic non-parametric approach), spatio-temporal kriging (STK, a geostatistical approach), and generalized additive models (GAM, a semi-parametric approach). These are evaluated according to multiple criteria. Results on simulated data show the ability of STK and GAM to reconstruct the spatio-temporal variability of the plot. STK proves more robust in relatively homogeneous fields, whereas GAM adapts better to intra-plot heterogeneities, despite a tendency to produce smoother structures. Furthermore, reconstruction quality is shown to be directly correlated with the number of fixed sensors and mobile acquisitions, with a greater gain for spatial maps than for fixed sensors, though improvements taper off beyond a certain threshold. In practice, it appears possible to reconstruct spatio-temporal variability satisfactorily with as few as 4 to 9 fixed sensors per hectare and about 4 mobile acquisitions per season, preferably early in the campaign. The vineyard experiments, despite some difficulties related to acquisition and cultivation conditions, provide an opportunity to test our approaches under real-world conditions. The development of image processing algorithms has yielded a dataset, less exhaustive than simulated data but dense enough to conduct sampling and reconstruction experiments. The results tend to confirm those from simulations: the strong performance of STK and GAM, the relevance of combining fixed and mobile sensors, and the feasibility of reducing the sampling effort to just a few fixed sensors per hectare and mobile acquisitions early in the season.
ED Sociétés, Politique, Santé Publique
The Contemporary City Between the Waters: Architecture, body consciousness and leisure activities. The New Harbor Baths of Copenhagen.
by Clément BRUN (Laboratoire Cultures, Education, Sociétés)
The defense will take place at 14h00 - Grande salle Bâtiment SMART, Université de Bordeaux 12 Av. Camille Jullian 33600 Pessac
in front of the jury composed of
- André SUCHET - Maître de conférences - Université de Bordeaux - Directeur de these
- Carola HEIN - Professor - Delft University of Technology - Rapporteur
- Martin VANIER - Professeur des universités - École d'Urbanisme de Paris - Rapporteur
- Marina HONTA - Professeure des universités - Université de Bordeaux - Examinateur
- Michel LUSSAULT - Professeur des universités - Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon - Examinateur
Since the emergence of the recreational city and the renewal of urban bodily practices, swimming has become both a matter of political initiative and a renewed field of research. In this context, this thesis analyzes the evolution of the Danish capital's harbor since its opening to urban swimming. If this opening was initially part of a strategy to transform the city's image as healthy and desirable, the subsequent success of the practice reveals, twenty years on, the tensions linked to the appropriation of harbor space. The harbor now constitutes a recreational continuum, crossed by continuities and ruptures stemming from planning choices and resident dynamics, calling for mobilization of the notion of dwelling (habiter) within a socio-geographic theoretical framing. This research is organized around a foundational tension: reciprocally, bathing installations and the act of bathing respond to one another. While the former embody new ways of urban dwelling, the latter challenges current and future regulations governing Copenhagen's harbor. Drawing on an interdisciplinary methodology that combines participant observation, visual methods, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis of foreign-language sources, this thesis articulates an architectural analysis of swimming sites with a study of the practices that unfold there. It highlights the diversification of quay forms in response to the massification of uses: architecture becomes an active agent shaping rhythms, postures, and atmospheres, varying according to the public and their motivations. The inquiry is structured around four axes: the seasonality of an inhabited harbor, between the winter of everyday routines and the summer of crowds; spatiality, between open water and enclosed water; urban integration, between planned bathing and appropriated bathing; and the adaptation of harbor rules as a public response to informal swimming. Urban bathing is embedded in a Nordic “active body” lifestyle and appears as a revealer of new modes of dwelling, structured around bodily maintenance, community sociability, and a relationship to nature that is nonetheless domesticated. But when swimmers overflow authorized zones, they generate use conflicts that blur the boundary between public and private space. These tensions ultimately highlight the contradictions of the neoliberal city: despite ambitions of social openness, harbor baths tend to become exclusive spaces, marked by residential proximity and socioeconomic in-grouping.
Expressing and interpreting violence. Conflicts of interpretation after the algerian civil war.
by Morgane JOUARET (Centre Emile Durkheim)
The defense will take place at 14h30 - Salle du conseil 1ter place de la victoire 33000 Bordeaux
in front of the jury composed of
- Sophie DUCHESNE - Directrice de recherche - Sciences Po Bordeaux - Directeur de these
- Lætitia BUCAILLE - Professeure des universités - Inalco - Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales - CoDirecteur de these
- Ronan HERVOUET - Professeur des universités - Université de Bordeaux - Examinateur
- Gérôme TRUC - Chargé de recherche - Institut des Sciences sociales du Politique - Examinateur
- Valérie ROSOUX - Directeur de recherche - Université catholique de Louvain - Rapporteur
- Luis MARTINEZ - Directeur de recherche - Sciences Po - Rapporteur
This thesis focuses on memories of the Algerian civil war (1992-1999) in order to analyze the social and political dynamics at work in the post-conflict period. How do positions inherited from the past shape socio-political representations in the present? From an ethnographic perspective, the study is based on interviews and observations conducted in Algiers and Oran, mainly with ordinary people, but also with individuals who have been exposed to violence, whether perpetrated by armed Islamist groups or by the state in the context of the fight against terrorism. In order to situate the Algerian model within the context of international experiences of managing violent pasts, the analysis focuses on the transition from political crisis to civil war, as well as the implementation of a policy of “national reconciliation” based on amnesty and economic reparations. The thesis examines how local victims' associations appropriate transitional justice tools to produce a counter-narrative of the war. Analysis of competing commemorations reveals struggles for recognition of victims and illustrates different social and political interpretations of violence. Secondly, the effects of the national reconciliation policy are analyzed from a microsociological perspective, “in concrete terms,” in the sense of everyday life. Who speaks about the war and what semantic registers are used to describe the conflict? The terms used to describe the conflict and its actors reflect frameworks of understanding that are shaped by local sociabilities that predate the conflict. The narratives of past violence by ordinary actors shed light on the circulation of references between the war of national liberation and the civil war. Examining the memories of the war held by ordinary actors reveals a polyphony of testimonies that converge on a single interpretation: the instrumentalization of violence by armed Islamist groups by the state. The thesis of the manipulation of violence has been reinforced by the impunity granted to the perpetrators of violence and the silence imposed on the victims, and has permeated post-war society. Finally, the socio-political and institutional dynamics initiated in February 2019 with the Hirak movement are fueled by different uses of the past. While protesters mobilize various historical references to take a stand in the movement, political and military leaders invoke the memory of the civil war to contain the mobilization.