and fashion labels—but it could be transformative. It offers, Flamini says, a “plant-based” alternative to oil-derived chemicals that could be used in thousands of products, from paints to cosmetics.
Flamini has recently been named CEO of GFBiochemicals, which has secured a €15 million investment to take its products out of the lab and into industry. Levulinic acid is a building block—a platform that can be tweaked and altered to suit the requirements of different industries. GFBiochemicals already has almost 200 patents for plant-based solvents, polyols, and plasticizers—all things that could replace substances extracted from fossil fuels, which have toxic or nonbiodegradable byproducts.
“There is a massive transition happening these days in the chemical industry,” Flamini says. “And this transition is being accelerated by two factors.” The first is policy: The European Union is clamping down on thousands of harmful substances and pushing industries to try and replace them with something cleaner. The second driver is public awareness of the potentially harmful impact on ecosystems of chemicals that don’t dissolve over time.
“We’re allowing the replacement of those obsolete molecules, which are having a negative impact on the planet, with new molecules that reduce COemissions and are biodegradable and nontoxic,” he says.
Bonetti RossoneriBlog Did not see this coming. Bravo, Mathieu Flamini.