ROSEAU, first doctoral research project in companies



Agathe Defourny, a graduate in Engineering Sciences, is the first doctoral student to benefit from the new program funded by the DGO6 (Walloon Public Service) which allows young scientists to carry out their doctoral research project within a company. Supervised by its promoters from the UEE research unit (School of Engineering), the young doctoral student is preparing to develop her ROSEAU project (Reserves and Origin of Carbogeneous Groundwater), which focuses on the understanding and characterization of the carbogeneous waters extracted by the belgian company Bru-Chevron.

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oing your thesis in a company? This is now possible, thanks to new funding from the DGO6, the platform for Research and Technology of the Belgium Walloon Public Service. And it is a young graduate of the University of Liège, Agathe Defourny, who will benefit from the first financing of this brand new program. Supported by its promoters, Prof. Frédéric Nguyen and Alain Dassargues of the Urban and Environmental Engineering research unit - UEE (School of Engineering), the young doctoral student will complete her PhD program and develop her project within the company Bru-Chevron. What is its objective? To improve scientific knowledge related to carbogas waters by developing new non-intrusive technologies to locate and assess water supplies in order to facilitate their exploitation, improve their sustainable management and ensure their protection.

Bru-Chevron, a private company located in Stoumont (Belgium), bottles and markets naturally sparkling mineral waters - called carbogaseous waters - from the geological massif of the Belgian Ardennes. Understanding the hydrodynamic and hydrochemical systems responsible for moving water to the surface and the origin of CO2 - the gas naturally present in water - remains limited, making it difficult to explore new resources and to characterize and exploit complex reserves, especially in the context of sustainable management.

Agathe Defourny, who has just completed a master's degree in civil engineering of mines and geology with a special focus on engineering and environmental geology, hopes, over the next four years, to be able to develop a conceptual model and try to put it into practice in order to develop a strategy that can promote sustainable management of the water available on the territory.

ROSEAU Forage

A three-stage project

First of all, Agathe wishes to start its research by developing a hydrodynamic and hydrochemical conceptual model that represents the transit of groundwater, from its infiltration to its ascent in CO2-rich form. "This model will extend to the different sparkling waters present in the Ardennes geological massif," explains the young researcher. This conceptualization will involve identifying characteristic and discriminating elements in the presence of carbogaseous water, from a hydrochemical, geological, geophysical or geomorphological point of view. To do this, we already have a large set of data collected over the years, studies and prospecting campaigns in the region." These data will be supplemented by new field campaigns using advanced technologies: isotopic analyses, radioactive analyses, induced polarization or nuclear magnetic resonance geophysical methods.

After the definition of a model, the method is debated. "We want to implement an integrated method for the identification of carbogaseous water reserves," says Agathe Defourny. To do this, we will develop an algorithm based on a technology derived from artificial neural networks, called self organizing maps (SOMs)." SOMs are very powerful machine learning tools that allow the 2D representation of large scale problems. After training on an existing dataset, this algorithm will be able to systematically recognize the points potentially representative of a CO2-rich water reserve a new dataset. A probabilistic mapping of the reserves can then be established.

"The achievement of the first two objectives will allow Bru-Chevron to develop a better strategy for the sustainable management of the carbogas water resources on its territory," explains the young researcher. The often costly and intrusive prospecting operations (drilling) will be better targeted in the future thanks to this study." A better understanding of the system and the location of reserves will also provide better protection for them.

This doctoral project will allow Bru-Chevron to access the scientific expertise necessary to achieve industrial objectives and to pass on these developments within the Spadel group internationally. The "Doctorate in Business" program, funded by the Walloon Public Service, aims to strengthen the scientific and technological potential of young researchers throughout the duration of their doctorate.

Contact

Agathe DEFOURNY

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