BIOTISS

• Start of the project : 01-07-08
• End of project : 31-12-15

BIOTISS: White biotechnology, a sustainable alternative for the production of chemicals.

Since 1 January 2007, the REACH Regulation has obliged chemical companies to gradually move towards substances that are less harmful to health and the environment. One of the indirect objectives of this legislation is to stimulate research and development of alternative production methods.

In addition to these political and legislative pressures, the market is also stimulating chemical companies to gradually abandon their traditional production processes in favour of white biotechnology. At the same time, agro-industries – subject to CAP reform – are also being forced to expand their activities towards higher added value products based on agro-resources.

This is why cooperation between the chemical industry and agro-industries is one of the major recommendations made by the authors of the CAPAS study, particularly in order to develop green chemistry, with this transfer of positioning to be supported by technological innovations. As a result, research in white biotechnology – e.g. for the design of biomaterials – has been identified as a major avenue for the development of our societies for the coming decades.

Generally speaking, the BIOTISS project has been designed to take into account different aspects of industrial innovation, i.e. process innovation, product innovation and/or application innovation.

In all of the project research programmes, one or more types of innovation can be highlighted.

Objectives and missions of Materia Nova

Within the consortium, Materia Nova has carried out

• The development of PHA production methods
• The production of Laccase from agro-waste/agro-resources
• Stem selection
• The extraction and production of high added value molecules from bioresources
• Down-Stream Processing
• Analysis