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Back in 2013, I got to know the ECerS conferences as the 13th edition has been organised in Limoges during the first year of my engineering diploma at the National Engineering College for Industrial Ceramics (ENSCI). This engineering college also gave me the opportunity to study glass, ceramics and biomaterials abroad at the prestigious Alfred University in the United States in 2013.

Few years after, as for many students, I took the hard decision to begin a PhD thesis and it was in collaboration with an industrial partner developping medical sensors. The technique used during this study is inkjet-printing and I used an inkjet printer from Ceradrop-MGI company (Figures 1 and 2). My PhD topic was about diagnosis and therapy of cancers using functionalized inkjet-printed mesoporous silica deposited onto optical fibers. The aim of this research was to develop a fast and in situ method of diagnosis of precocious tumors and to do the therapy right after the diagnosis, improving the patients survival rate. On that purpose, the mesoporous silica was deposited onto optical fibers using inkjet printing technology to afford a high precision of deposition for the material. It was later functionalized either way with specific biomolecules to detect cancerous markers or with photosensitizers to use with photodynamic therapy (PDT). This research topic involved different industrial partners and has been valued thanks to two industrial patents [1][2]. This PhD work was also an opportunity to attend the ECerS conference, for the 15th edition held in Budapest in 2017.

Few years after, I also did work on a project to develop a new sensing probe for the detection of pollutants, which might also be used later for medical applications (depending on the chosen functionalization). To have a high sensitivity, the probe is using the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect, which requires to use metallic nanoparticles. I did work for 2 years on this project, to improve the nanoparticles synthesis, grafting density and optical properties, and with appropriate deposition method and functionalized coatings to afford a proper detection (Figure 3). This project involves IRCER (Institute of Research on Ceramics) in Limoges, France, along with IKTS Fraunhofer in Germany, and in Warsaw with the partners Warsaw University of Technology (WUT), IMIF/Łukasiewicz (Institute of Microelectronics and Photonics) and the industrial partner Teknosystem. The project is currently valued thanks to the development of an industrial demonstrator (Figure 4).

Since then, I have been hired by a company working on coatings and surface treatments for protective packaging dedicated to pharmaceutical and cosmetics. Back to the industry !

Thank you for giving the opportunity to share the common work with partners !

Dr.-Ing. Romain TRIHAN

romain.trihan@unilim.fr 

Institute of Research on Ceramics (IRCER) – UMR CNRS 7315
Centre Européen de la Céramique – 12 rue Atlantis
87068 Limoges - FRANCE

[1] M. Lejeune, F. Rossignol, O. De Los Cobos, J. Graffion, F. Lalloue, H. Akil, P. Faugeras, J. Vincent. French Patent N°13/01417

[2] J. Desroches, O. Baudet, M. Lejeune, R. Trihan, F. Lalloué. International Patent N° WO 2018211210A1