François Ropital graduated as a Materials Engineer from the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées of Lyon. He has a PhD in Chemical Engineering awarded by the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des mines of Saint-Etienne and holds a national accreditation to supervise research in Applied Chemistry and Industrial Process Engineering from Paris VI University. He works at IFP on the behaviour of materials for energy technologies in the Applied chemistry and Physical Chemistry Division. He teaches corrosion at IFP School and IFP Training. He also leads a work group on the subject in the European Federation of Corrosion.