ESPCI Paris - PSL hosted the Falling Walls competition

Lucie Ries, winner of the Faling Walls Paris competition

Three minutes to convince, no more! Falling Walls is a renowned international academic competition where verbosity has no place. Competitors face off through very short 3-minute speeches presenting their research topics and work. A jury composed of professionals from the academic world then deliberates to determine the winner, who will be offered a spot in the competition finals in Berlin next month. We offer you a summary of the projects that caught the jury’s attention.

Let’s begin with Lucie Ries, a post-doctoral researcher in materials chemistry in the MicroMegas team at the ENS Physics Laboratory. She is the grand winner of this competition. Lucie presented her work on a new technology to optimize water treatment membrane filters. These membranes are useful for both seawater desalination and water treatment for industrial processes, allowing for water reuse on-site. "Water treatment is all the more important as one in three people in the world still lacks access to drinking water," Lucie points out. We speak of optimization because these membranes are already well-known; however, they have the drawback of being energy-intensive and regularly clogging, necessitating frequent replacement. The researchers in the MicroMegas team may have the solution to reduce this additional cost. Through electro-osmosis - which involves applying an electric field inside the device - the membranes acquire self-regenerating properties. Under the influence of this weak electrical current, a pumping and pushing phenomenon occurs within the device, preventing the membranes from clogging while making the treatment process more efficient. This patented technology reduces water treatment costs and may pave the way for larger-scale applications.

Neck and neck with the winner, the second place goes to the SonoMind project presented by Thomas Tiennot, a researcher and post-doctoral fellow at the PhysMed Laboratory, ESPCI Paris - PSL / INSERM / CNRS. It starts with the observation that nearly 30% of severely depressed patients are resistant to medication-based therapeutic strategies. Direct brain stimulation of the areas involved in the disease is sometimes necessary, but existing brain stimulation methods are either too invasive for widespread use or too superficial to reach the targeted brain regions. SonoMind aims to develop the first non-invasive and deep brain stimulation method using focused ultrasound.

Finally, the rAIman project led by Clémence Gentner, a post-doctoral researcher at the Kastler Brossel Laboratory, claims the third place in this competition. Beyond contrasts and colors, the rAIman project pushes the boundaries of imaging to chemical identification. The technology combines the Raman effect with computational approaches to image chemical composition in real-time, breaking barriers in fields ranging from biomedicine to security.

Congratulations to all the participants in this competition for the quality of the projects presented. We wish good luck to Lucie Ries, who will compete in the Falling Walls finals in Berlin next month. Thanks to DeepTech Founders and Elodie Chabrol, co-organizers of this event.