Research and application fields

 Agribusiness
 
France’s top industrial sector, agribusiness covers a wide range of activities:  improvement of stock raising and seeding; processing of animals and plants; agricultural engineering and preparation, and storing.  This sector calls more and more often on research, especially for the improvement of manufacturing techniques and to ensure the final quality of products put on the market. 
Large industrial groups have relied for several years on the use of synchrotron light to characterize and minutely analyze their products, for example with chocolate, dairy products, and food mousses.  Original studies of fermentation and the procedures of baking bread have recently been conducted via microtomography, a technique that reveals the alveolar architecture at very high resolution.  These activities should be strengthened and widened over the next several years to meet the ever-more stringent demands of consumers in terms of quality and flavor. 
 

 Cosmetics
 
The cosmetics industry is a longtime user of synchrotron radiation facilities both in France and abroad.  Available techniques are particularly well adapted to a number of this industry’s needs, both for the development of new products and for the monitoring of their effects and the control of their safety. 
Companies today use synchrotron chemical scanning techniques to characterize the effects of products on the skin, hair, or fingernails.  It is thus possible to closely examine the physical/chemical life of a product after application, its diffusion throughout cloth, and its effects on their different biochemical components.  The other major activity area concerns the development of new products to characterize, monitor, and control the nanometric and micrometric architecture of the complex environments formed by water-oil-surfactant mixtures.
  

 Chemistry
 
Fine chemistry and specialized chemistry take advantage of synchrotron techniques both for research and development and for manufacturing procedures, with basic chemistry being less involved. 
X-absorption spectroscopy techniques permit the monitoring of chemical reactions in real time, both the type and state of oxidation of reactants, which explains the large amount of activity involving the development of new catalysts in all synchrotron radiation facilities. 
Plastics, elastomers, and composites are also analyzed at the molecular structure, via X-diffraction/diffusion, and also via morphology, via microtomography, to monitor their synthesis and formation, understand their mechanical properties, or control their quality, especially during the aging process or fatigue tests.  The same analyses can be done on numerous products in the area of specialized chemistry; painting, varnish, ink, glue, detergents, etc.
 

 Electronic
 
Research and development play a fundamental role in electronics, a very high-technology activity, especially in the area of components and that of professional and industrial electronics concerning areas of application as varied as defense, spatial issues, aeronautics, transport, medicine, and metrology. 
Electronics entities have always maintained close links with synchrotron radiation facilities in order to take advantage of techniques of magnetic dichroism and photoemission, which give access to information on electronic states and spin.  The natural polarization of synchrotron light is a major asset for measuring dichroism; its spectral continuity is extremely important for experiments in photoemission. 
In addition, submicrometric beams permit the exploration of fine structures; for example, the state of strains of crystalline grains in interconnections, in thin layers of magnetic systems, or in microstructures.
Techniques of surface characterization—atomic structure, chemical state, reactivity, metallic contamination, nanostructures, etc.—are also used by industrial entities. 

 Buildings - Public works
 
The use of synchrotron techniques by building and public works companies is relatively recent, but it has grown along with the development of techniques such as microtomography.  This technique permits the visualization of structures in volume at the micrometric level, with applications for the analysis of porosity, diffusion, and aging, as well as the distribution of components in its largely heterogeneous materials. 
The other main activity involves the monitoring of chemical reactions and the observation of temporary products during the creation of bonds, with the objective being to be capable of handling the formulation and additives that will lead to the required specifications.  The technique used is the diffraction of X-rays and the reaction is monitored in situ and in real time.
The advanced characterization of the chemical state of ions at the surface of objects in concrete or metal is also studied via X-absorption spectroscopy for problems of corrosion, contamination, and environment.  
  

 Transport
 
The growing requirements of land and air transport clients in terms of performance, comfort, and security explain the important part that industrial entities, manufacturers, and equipment providers in the field dedicate to research and development, with the constant desire to protect the environment. 
The use of synchrotron techniques in this sector concerns three main activities.  The first is related to the improvement of output of catalysts that transform escaping gases into non-toxic gases.  These studies are conducted via X-absorption spectroscopy to monitor and understand the state of the catalysts during reactions. 
The second activity involves measurement via X-ray diffraction of the residual strain in metallic parts, especially for sensitive aeronautic material like turbine paddles, and also in parts subject to breakdown for automobiles and railroad materials. 
Finally, microtomography permits the revealing of malfunctions hidden in parts and the analysis of the architecture of metallic mousses.

 

 Materials 
 
It is difficult to cite all the applications of synchrotron techniques in the area of materials, so numerous are the materials analyzed and the techniques used.  Materials analyzed include metals and alloys, glass, ceramics, rubber, technical and composite plastics, wood, paper paste, textiles, and primary materials for industries such as the cosmetic and pharmacy industries. 
It is possible to examine the molecular organization of all these materials, their chemical composition and their micro-morphology, and to monitor the modifications induced in them by different strains, in situ and in real time: thermal, mechanical, under flow, in a specific chemical environment, under electric field, or under irradiation. 
The information provided by these analyses constitute a complement to the laboratory analyses and a major support to engineers for research activities and the development of new products, in the engineering of procedures, quality control, and possible recycling.  
 

 Energy
 
The analytical abilities of synchrotron techniques are much more marked for fossil energies, especially oil and nuclear, than for renewable energies, for which material aspects are not predominant. 
On the side of exploration, the oil industry is interested in these techniques for the evaluation of the quality and porosity of reservoir rocks, and on the petrochemical side for the analysis of hydrocarbons and derivatives, notably for problems with catalysts and the development of new catalysts, a major activity in all synchrotron radiation facilities. 
The nuclear industry itself is interested in the exploration mining of uranium, the preparation of combustibles, and the growth of their performances, treatment, and recycling, not to mention the management of waste, all while respecting environmental standards. 
Synchrotron techniques are also well adapted to the analysis of material in tanks and the monitoring of corrosion and aging mechanisms under irradiation.
 

 Environment and eco-industries