Rechercher
Welcome to a refined vegetal world
Biomass in general, the plant kingdom in particular, forms an underutilized reservoir of extraordinarily varied molecules, in terms of both their chemical composition and potential uses. Developed in planta for a specific function of polymers of structures or reserve, or even as primary or secondary metabolites, these molecules constitute the pool of precursors for tomorrow’s chemical industry. They can be isolated after simple fractionation or after a series of biotechnological or chemical transformations.
The concept of biorefinery and more specifically of vegetable refinery was born in the 1980s, from the realization of all the potential offered by the judicious use of the renewable plant resources generated by a sustainable agriculture. Over the past ten years, this idea has sparked renewed interest in view of the new environmental concerns and the evolutions of the price of fossil fuels. Partly inspired by the model of the petrochemical refinery that converts crude oil to provide fuels and synthesize various reagents, the biorefinery involves the fractionation of the plant followed by the purification and transformation of the various constituents isolated into products for the energy sector (biofuels), agrimaterials (bioplastics, biocomposites, fibres), specialty products (surfactants, agrisolvents, bioplasticizers), large chemical intermediaries and fine chemistry.
This new approach is now adopted by most industrial sectors that plan to gradually replace fossil carbon resources by new renewable carbon sources. It is not competing with the traditional approach oriented towards the food sector, but rather supplements it in the interest of greater efficiency, both environmental and economic.
The biorefinery thus offers an integrated approach to these various upgrading processes, based on the recent advances in biotechnology and reformed plant chemistry, incorporating cleaner processes, well adapted to the conversion of agrimolecules. Chemists get involved to make progress in the understanding of the structure of the constituents and substances naturally present in plants, improve the efficiency of chemical conversion processes, use a platform molecule to synthesize a therapeutic active principle of interest using a new process, or even improve the performances of bioplastics and biocomposites.
Institut de chimie moléculaire de Reims, CNRS-Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
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