Director of the Institut de Chimie de la Matière Condensée (ICMCB) in Bordeaux, the chemist Cyril Aymonier has been awarded the CNRS Innovation Medal.

Cyril Aymonier’s research focuses on processes ranging from the synthesis of artificial minerals to the recycling of photovoltaic cells and end-of-life food packaging. This research has led to almost 50 patents with direct applications in major companies such as Safran, Arkema, Saint-Gobain, Renault, Airbus, Essilor and Merck.

This wealth of work has been rewarded with the 2024 CNRS Innovation Medal, awarded to the Director of the Institut de chimie de la matière condensée, for his advances in the recycling of materials under unconventional and sustainable conditions using supercritical fluids – environments where specific temperature and pressure conditions give solvents a behaviour somewhere between a gas and a liquid.

Cyril Aymonier is heavily involved in the DIADEM PEPR and in particular in the 2FAST targeted project, in which his team is developing high-pressure/high-temperature micro/millifluidic tools equipped with in situ characterisation systems for the synthesis of advanced nanostructured materials.

Cyril Aymonier will receive his medal in December, alongside two other prize-winners, physicist Lydéric Bocquet and quantum physicist Eleni Diamanti, rewarded for their research leading to technological, therapeutic or social innovation.