Biométhodes and OptaFuel regrouped to form Arbiom

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A new actor emerges in the biorefinery sector as a consequence of the reorganization of two companies with expertise in the field of biomass processing: Virginia-based OptaFuel US Inc and French-based Biométhodes. The unification was announced in a press release on July 16 and confirmed in the World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology (Montreal, July 19 – 22). Arbiom, which is the name of the new company, is focused on developing technologies enabling the sustainable use of non-food green biomass.

Arbiom’s biorefinery platform converts non-food biomass (for instance, residues from agriculture and forestry) into intermediates for the production of biofuels and green chemicals. The new microorganisms used at the manufacturing of advanced biofuels or platform chemicals (succinic acid, lactic acid,…) are highly sensitive to the quality of their substrates and Arbiom's process deals with this issue providing sugars compatible with these applications. It is a phosphoric acid process that uses mild conditions to fractionate the lignocellulosic biomass in order to preserve the chemical value of each of its fractions: C5/C6 sugars and lignin. Each one of these streams can be used as building block and be further converted via chemical or microbial conversion processes to biobased chemical intermediates and end products. The technology has been successfully tested on hard and soft wood, wheat and rapeseed straw, and bamboo, among others.

Figure 1. Biorefinery concept and process of Arbiom (extracted from Arbiom website)

The company owns three sites: Process Development and Pilot in Norton (VA, USA), Enzyme Development in Evry (France) and Applications Platform in Raleigh (NC, USA). Arbiom is currently structuring its first commercial projects in Europe and USA and leverages its Application Platform to secure partnerships with biotechnology and green chemicals companies and biomass producers and processors.

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