AgroParisTech Innovation is the association developing and promoting research and innovation activities on behalf of AgroParisTech, the leading French higher education and research institution in agricultural and life sciences, food science and technology, biotechnologies, forestry and sustainable management of natural resources and territories. As AgroParisTech “structure de recherche sur contrat”, AgroParisTech Innovation objectives derive from the implementation of AgroParisTech research innovation priorities.  

URD ABI is a transdisciplinary research unit dedicated to biomass and by-products valorization through integrated approaches combining biotechnologies, green chemistry and downstream processing. It aims to design and optimize value chains that go from biomass to high value-added end-use products, such as solvents, platform molecules and functional additives (e.g., antioxidants, anti-UV, antimicrobial). 

For more than 6 years now, the URD ABI has been working in close collaboration with Circa Group on the valorisation of levoglucosenone via its transformation using green chemistry (e.g., biocatalysis) into valuable chiral chemical platforms (e.g. HBO, epoxides), high value-added end products (e.g. flavors, pheromones), and more importantly into Cyrene™ through a metal-free and dihydrogen-free biotechnological process. Not only is URD ABI a recognized expert in green chemistry, biotechnologies and sustainable processes, but it also has expertise in downstream processing and scale-up facilities (e.g., a 5-liter reactor) that allow to scale up the optimized chemical reactions at the bench scale and synthesize high value biomass-based compounds up to the multigram/kilo scale.