Xavier Mercier

CNRS Research Director since 2021 at the PC2A laboratory, I work on the measurement of the chemical species involved in the formation of carbonaceous particles in combustion media.

These species are minor, short-lived, and coexist with stable compounds that are far more abundant. No single technique can identify them. My activity therefore relies on the convergence of independent diagnostics applied to the same reference media: laser-induced fluorescence and incandescence, excitation-emission matrices, electron paramagnetic resonance, ion mobility mass spectrometry and VUV photoelectron spectroscopy carried out at the SOLEIL synchrotron.

This approach has established the presence of resonance-stabilized radicals in the soot nucleation zone, identified several of them and clarified their role in the formation of the first particles. The molecular families involved are also present in atmospheric carbonaceous aerosols and in the carbonaceous matter of the interstellar medium, two objects to which these methods are now being transferred.