热博体育

Issues

High population growth in French Guiana is driving an increase in demand for wood materials for construction and energy production. Logging and primary processing of wood generate 50 % waste, known as wood-related products. Until now, this waste has been used in biomass plants for energy production. But bark and wood are characterised by their many molecules, which can be a source of natural ingredients for different sectors, especially cosmetics. The diversity of the forests of French Guiana, and the potential of these biomolecules, point to the importance of optimising the recovery of forest biomass, upstream of energy production, in order to meet the challenges of a circular economy.
The goal of the ValorExtr@ct project is to study the functionalities of the biomolecules derived from forest biomass, especially for applications in the cosmetics industry, with a view to discussing the potential of establishing a new link in the wood value chain around the use of biomolecules.

Description

The ValorExtr@ct project is divided into five activities:

• Based on a list of five of the most harvested species, identifying five bark extracts for recovery.
• Highlighting extracts of interest in cosmetics, based on screening of biological activities (antioxidant / antiradical, anti-ageing, anti-inflammatory, anti-enzyme, antimicrobial, etc.).
• Developing a method to certify the biological activity of the most effective extracts (biomarker / biological activity relationship).
• Identifying the operational conditions enabling a scale change (semi-industrial) based on the two most effective extracts (large-scale production and preservation of biological properties).
• Highlighting the potential of the woody species found in plots planned for agricultural clearing (botanical inventory, phytochemical screening in a test plot).

Expected impacts

Through a study of the potential recovery of wood-related products from forestry, the goal of this project is to:

• provide the foundations for the creation of a value chain around the production of Amazon extracts, key ingredients for the production of cosmetics;
• utilise clearing during the conversion of forests to agricultural or urban areas.

Knowledge acquisition will also help to identify technical, technological and environmental barriers and to propose appropriate solutions with a view to incorporating a new link in the wood value chain in French Guiana, between timber production and biomass and energy production.
Through the integration of an industrial partner, Lucas Meyer Cosmetics (a company that manufactures innovative ingredients for the cosmetics and personal care industry), which collaborates in the search for fields of application for extracts derived from wood in the cosmetics industry, ValorExtr@ct ensures that its proposals are realistic and consistent with market needs and industrial constraints.

Contract partners

• Guyane Développement Innovation (GDI)
• Provider: Bioforextra Lucas Meyer Cosmetics