BioEB is the culmination of more than 20 years of R&D led by Prof. Michel Delmas on biomass refining.
The concept of biomass refining is to separate without degradation the 3 main components common to all terrestrial lignocellulosic biomass and to subsequently valorize them.
This is just like the petroleum (or oil) that arrives at the refinery to distribute the products from which most of our everyday materials and fuels come.
The LEEBio™ process is built on the capacity of formic acid to refine all non-food biomass into its 3 components which are cellulose, lignin and hemicelluloses.
It was from the 2000s that a cellulose pulp equivalent to a commercial pulp was produced, from cereal straw, by using formic acid as extraction solvent.
Lignin and hemicelluloses were in turn separated without degradation with a major breakthrough discovery for lignin and the concept of biomass refining.
Indeed, form 2003 and for the first time in the scientific world, lignin was described as a set of linear oligomers with homogeneous structures close to the native structure of lignin in plant matter.
There followed a period of intensive research on its structural characterization and its possibilities of application in all fields of modern chemistry.
In 2010 the European Biocore program, coordinated by INRAE, was launched during 4 years with a partnership of 24 European companies and universities working on cellulose, lignin and hemicelluloses extracted from cereal straws mainly.
This program has benefited from substantial financial support from the European Union and has been a success in the area
Biocore has elucidated the last lock to be lifted which will guarantee the success of the industrialization of lignocellulosic biomass refining:
Achieve the lowest possible overall energy consumption of the biorefinery
Inspired by Biocore and their published works, a new process will be studied and built to solve this energy lock while maintaining the same efficiency of the separation, purity and quality of the products.
Several years will be necessary to establish a new intellectual property on lignocellulose biomass refining and which will be validated by the filing of 6 patents currently being extended worldwide.
It is by combining 2 decades of experience in the field of lignocellulosic biomass refining and the establishment of this new intellectual property that the family company BioEB was created in July 2018 by :
Michel Delmas, President
Guo-Fang Delmas, Administrative & Financial Manager
Guo-Hua Delmas, Scientific & Technical Manager