Successful development of robust, safe, economical and green chemical processes depends on the knowledge and practical skills of process chemists. This Major provides core training in chemistry and chemical engineering, as well as the necessary skills to manage projects involving chemical production ranging ‘from the milligram to the ton’.
The CDP team at the School of Engineering and Architecture Fribourg (HEIA-FR) develops efficient and robust syntheses of given molecules respecting economic and ecologic aspects. This includes thorough analytical work (e.g. off-line and on-line process control, product characterisation), process characterisation regarding safety and kinetics, synthetic work (route finding, route enabling and optimisation), and engineering aspects (e.g. reaction engineering, separation & purification technologies, smart process automation).
Objectives
Master graduates will be able to:
- Enable and optimise synthetic protocols stemming from the research lab. They possess the ability to search and evaluate new synthetic pathways including catalysis and green chemistry in a vision of sustainability.
- Evaluate safety aspects of chemical processes and products.
- Understand and apply chemical analytics, data treatment with chemometric methodologies and optimize synthetic routes by automated experimentation based on statistical design.
- Use and develop methodologies for industrial scale-up of reactions and purification processes.
- Establish standard operation procedures, risk analysis, and cost analysis taking in account regulatory aspects.
- Design and implement a chemical production unit by integrating automation and process control.
Modules
Specialization modules
Module | Professor | ECTS | Semester | Location | |
S01 | Process Chemistry and Development | Roger Marti | 4 | Autumn | Fribourg |
S03 | Process Design and Optimization | Michal Dabros | 4 | Spring | Fribourg |
S04 | Chemical Engineering & Process Intensification | Thierry Chappuis | 4 | Autumn | Fribourg |
S05 | Safety, Production and Quality | Véronique Breguet Mercier | 4 | Autumn | Fribourg |
S22 | Analytics and Characterization | Cyril Portmann | 4 | Spring | Fribourg |
Master thesis
For the academic year 2024-2025, the Master thesis is divided into two modules. Please follow the links below to access the module descriptions:
Other useful documents for the Master thesis (templates for the report, project description, intellectual property and confidentiality agreement) are available on Cyberlearn.
Note: the module Literature Review and Research Proposal (X01) is replaced by PI01 from the academic year 2024-2025 (see below). Students who have questions about this can contact mls(at)hes-so.ch.
Projects
From the academic year 2024-2025, the MLS offers the module "Interdisciplinary project". Its goal is to bring together the students from all three majors to work on a shared project. Each group is supervised by a teacher from each major. The projects will take place in part in presential in Lausanne (mainy for the kick-off meeting and the final presentations, see schedule). For the rest of the project, each group can organise its tasks, and the work can be done individually, in sub-groups or in groups, online or in presential if needed.
Students take this compulsory module during the Autumn Semester, during the first year for full-time studies, during the second year for part-time studies. Each student needs to mention a first and a second choice, and a repartition will be done to ensure a balanced distribution in terms of numbers and of majors.
The description of the module and of the three projects offered in Autumn 2024 are available below:
- Interdisciplinary Project (PI01)
- Project 1: Diagnostic tools for Brettanomyces detection
- Project 2: Transformation of a process step to continuous operation
- Project 3: Valorization of wine by-product wastes
Cluster-specific modules
Module descriptions and further information are available on MSLS Community Centre.
Module | ECTS | Semester | Location | |
C1 | Materials Science | 3 | Autumn | Olten and online |
C2 | Surface Characterisation | 3 | Autumn | Olten and online |
C3 | Polymers and Applications | 3 | Winter School | Friborug |
C4 | Green Chemistry | 3 | Spring | Olten and online |
C5 | Chemistry and Energy | 3 | Spring | Olten and online |
C6 | Industrial Chemical Process Safety | 3 | Summer School | Fribourg |
Additional Offer from other Clusters
Module descriptions and further information are available on MSLS Community Centre.
Modules | ECTS | Semester | Location | |
CO1 | Modelling of Complex Systems | 3 | Autumn | Olten and online |
CO2 | Machine Learning and Pattern Recognition | 3 | Autumn | Olten and online |
CO3 | Optimisation and Bio-Inspired Algorithms | 3 | Spring | Olten and online |
CO4 | Imaging for the Life Sciences | 3 | Spring | Olten and online |
BP1 | Compound Profiling in Pharmaceutical Drug Discovery | 3 | Autumn | Olten and online |
BP3 | Design of Biopharmaceutical Production Facilities | 3 | Winter School | Wädenswil |
Professors
![]() | Dr. Christophe Allemann Lecturer of Process Chemistry since 2013. Competences in process development and process optimization, industrial chemistry, flow chemistry, catalysis and physical organic chemistry. |
![]() | Dr. Véronique Breguet Mercier Coordinator of module S05. |
![]() | Dr. Pierre Brodard Lecturer of Physical Chemistry since 2012. Competences in reaction mechanisms, thermodynamic and kinetic safety of reactions, optical spectroscopy. Coordinator of module C3. |
![]() | Dr. Thierry Chappuis Lecturer of Chemical Engineering since 2008. Competences in Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, chemical reaction engineering, process modeling, PAT, nanoparticle synthesis. Coordinator of module S04. |
![]() | Dr. Michal Dabros Lecturer of Chemical Engineering since 2010. Competences in Chemical and Bioprocess Engineering, Process modeling, monitoring, control and optimization, and Process Analytical Technology (PAT). Coordinator of module S03. |
![]() | Ludovic Gremaud Lecturer of Chemical Process since 2019. Competences in Process Research & Development (PR&D), Process Optimization, Continuous Improvement Process (CIP), Green Process Development, Organic Synthesis, Chiral Catalysis, Industrial Chemistry, Process Simulation. Coordinator of module C6. |
Fiorella Lucarini | |
![]() | Dr. Olimpia Mamula Steiner Lecturer of Organic Chemistry since 2010. Competences in organic and inorganic synthesis, metallasupramolecular chemistry, coordination compounds with d and f metals, (nano) catalysis, and tribology. |
![]() | Dr. Roger Marti Lecturer of Organic Chemistry & Process Chemistry since 2009. Competences in synthesis & process research, chiral catalysis, new synthesis technologies (micro reactors & solid phase synthesis), and molecules for applications in life sciences. Coordinator of module S01. |
![]() | Dr. Olivier Nicolet Lecturer of Physical Chemistry since 2016. Head of CDP specialization. Competences in thermodynamic, kinetic, optical spectroscopy and physical characterization of food. |
![]() | Cyril Portmann Associate professor since 2020. Competences in analytical chemistry, drug development, natural product chemistry and bioassays Coordinator of module S22. |
![]() | Olivier Vorlet Lecturer of Automation since 1999. Competences in process automation, process control and instrumentation. |
Contact
Dr Olivier Nicolet
Head of the major
School of Engineering and Architecture Fribourg
Boulevard de Pérolles 80
1700 Fribourg
T +41 26 429 67 05
olivier.nicolet(at)hefr.ch