Biomass characterization

This axis aims to characterize the chemical and physical structure of biomass in relation to its properties.

Consultations with experts and feedback from French academic networks have highlighted the importance of gathering more information on the composition and structure of biomass, and potentially establishing standard procedures and tools regardless of the type of biomass and transformation pathways.

Indeed, although the structural and chemical complexity of biomass makes it a raw material with high potential, its low carbon and energy density, diversity, and often seasonal nature make it challenging to exploit for industrial purposes. In particular, despite numerous effective tools and high-level technical developments, a lack of interdisciplinary approach has been emphasized, notably the combination of biochemical/structural/informatic analyses to address one of the most important questions: the relationships between structural scales to understand (and possibly predict) the properties and reactivity of biomass.

This research axis consists of a targeted project and will be complemented by projects selected from the program’s call for projects.

Flagship Project:

• FillingGaps: studying the properties of biomass at all scales.

Winners of the 2024 call for projects:

• Applestorm: imaging biomass multiscale architecture.
• MICRO-MASS: microscopic Imaging Coupled with Mass Analysis for Structural Studies
• WallMat: biosourced materials inspired from the plant cell walls.