France-headed biochemical process developer Global Bioenergies has announced that it has received a payment of EUR 1 million from ADEME, which operates the Investissements d’Avenir programme on behalf of the French government.“The process has achieved a level of performance that from now on would allow its exploitation in a full-scale plant to be competitive in a number of high value-added markets, such as cosmetics", said Bernard Chaud, Director of Industrial Strategy at Global Bioenergies.
According to a statement, this payment from the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) follows improvements in the process’s performance levels and the completion of a key step of the joint Global Bioenergies, IBN-One, Cristal Union and L’Oréal ISOPROD project.
The completion of this key step is a reflection on the major progresses recently achieved in adapting our Isobutene process to sugar refinery residues. This payment from ADEME adds to the grant prepayment of the four new European projects recently announced. Recovering the government R&D tax credit on the short term will bring our (unaudited) cash position to more than EUR 11 million, said Marc Delcourt, CEO of Global Bioenergies.
The ISOPROD project has the following objectives:
- the adaptation of the Isobutene process to sugar refinery residues;
- the engineering for the first plant carried by IBN-One, the joint venture between Global Bioenergies and Cristal Union;
- the validation of bio-isobutene derivatives in the fuel and cosmetics sector.
Global Bioenergies’ process allows biofuels and biosourced materials to be produced in a more virtuous way, that is to say by using local resources in accordance with methods complying with European biofuels regulations and by having an excellent environmental benefit, explained Xavier Astolfi, Deputy CEO of Cristal Union.
