High school students visiting the Institute’s platforms

On November 21st, the advanced characterization platform welcomed a class of high-school students as part of Excur’sciences, an initiative run by Les Sciences Infusent, the scientific mediation program of the Université de Lille’s Direction de la valorisation.

The students visited several clusters (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Electronic Microscopy, surface analysis, inductively coupled plasma and vibrational spectroscopy), guided by the engineers and scientists working there. They discovered several pieces of equipment, such as the imposing 1.2 GHz NMR spectrometer. From the analysis of microplastics by vibrational spectroscopy to the observation of atoms by electron microscopy, they experienced a gradual plunge into the infinitely small.

At the same time, the REALCAT cluster of the Engineering Technology Platform for Chemsitry and Matérials welcomed another class to discover catalysis research.

At the end of the day, the rich exchanges gave the students a better understanding of what chemical research involves and the career paths that lead to it.