Physico-chemical pre-treatment of plant biomass: state of play and applications

This workshop, organised by INRAE with contributions of academic and industrial stakeholders aims at presenting the state of the art of the physico-chemical pre-treatments for overcoming recalcitrance of lignocellulosic biomass. Indeed, pretreatment is an essential step in deconstructing the biomass before conversion processes, making it more reactive to chemical and biological catalysts, but it remains an
important challenge for industrial transposition.

The objective of the workshop is to present the latest advances in pre-treatments developed, their mechanisms of action, their advantages and their technical limitations, including the coupling of pretreatments. The economic and environmental impacts of these pre-treatments as well as examples of applications in the industry will also be discussed in a round-table.

Specific presentations will be made on the following pretreatments: dry fractionation techniques to modify the reactivity of biomass with very low energy and environmental costs; continuous twin-screw extrusion to deconstruct biomass or improve the properties of fibre boards; microwaves for the extraction of compounds of interest; steam explosion to increase reactivity to hydrolysis.

Programme of the workshop

• Research advances

Physico-chemical pre-treatments of biomass state-of-the-art,
Diana Garcia-Bernet (Laboratoire de Biotechnologie de l'Environnement, INRAE, Narbonne)

Pretreatment of beech wood using choline chloride based deep eutetic solvents 
Pierre-Alann Cable (Laboratoire Réactions et Génie des Procédés, Université de Lorraine, Nancy)

Twin screw extrusion a suitable technology for biomass deconstruction. Application example: new pretreatment for second generation biofuel plants.
Virginie Vandebossche (Laboratoire de Chimie Agro-Industrielle, Ensiacet, INRAE, Toulouse)

• Industrial uses of physico-chemical pre-treatments of biomass

Dry Vapocracking Treatment of lignocellulosic biomass: a new industrial process for biomass pretreatment
Frédéric Martel (Européenne de Biomasse)

Microwave technologies processing
Marilena Radoiu (Microwave Technologies Consulting)

Physico-chemical pretreatment of lignin to produce bio-aromatic fractions for industrial application: from lab to pilot,
Roel Vleeschouwers (VITO)

Intensified continuous biomass pre-treatment by twin screw extrusion
Lionel Danos (Clextral)

Organizers:
Gabriel Paës and Caroline Rémond (FARE, Reims)
Cécile Barron and Abdellatif Barakat (IATE, Montpellier)
Diana Garcia-Bernet (LBE, Narbonne)
Virginie Vandenbossche (LCA, Toulouse)
Coraline Caullet (3BCAR, Paris)