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Three years…

It took Florent Héroguel, Jérémy Luterbacher, and a whole team of colleagues at EPFL three years to discover a new chemical process that breaks down wood molecules and recovers cellulose, lignin, and hemicellulose.

So, what’s the point, you might ask? Well, the benefits are enormous! Because this process makes it possible to replace petroleum—which is the basis for thousands of consumer goods—with ingredients derived from trees.

In this episode of the podcast “2040: I’m Going!,” Chantal Peyer invites you to dive into a little-known world: the world of materials.

In Renens, Florent Héroguel takes us behind the scenes at the Bloom Biorenewables lab to discover how to make our sunscreens, plastic bags, and even textiles without using petroleum.

Then we will head to EPFL to continue the discussion on material sustainability with Véronique Michaud, director of the High-Performance Composites Processing Laboratory.

And as always, we’ll end with a trip to the year 2040.

Welcome to the world of the bioeconomy!

Interview: Chantal Peyer
Directed by: Bastien Moeckli

Photos of the Bloom Biorenewables laboratory. Copyright: Chantal Peyer

References

• bloom biorenewables
• Rémy Buser, Petrochemicals: The Dark Side of the Moon
• Prof. Véronique Michaud – Sustainability-Driven Materials Research

Further information

• Federal Office for the Environment, Plastics in the Environment
• Plastic in the Swiss Environment: Current Knowledge on the Environmental Impacts of Plastics (Micro- and Macroplastics), Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), 2020
• The Future of Petrochemicals: Toward a More Sustainable Chemical Industry, International Energy Agency, 2019. And a video of a conference: https://www.iea.org/reports/the-future-of-petrochemicals
• Global Outlook on Plastics: Economic Drivers, Environmental Impacts, and Policy Options, OECD, 2023.
• Chemicals in plastic. Summary and Key Findings, UNEP, 2023.

Supporters
The podcast “2040, I’m Going!” is made possible thanks to the support of the Giovannini Foundation, the Canton of Vaud, the Canton of Geneva, and Services Industriels de Genève. We would also like to thank our distribution partners: Impact Hub Lausanne-Geneva; One Planet Lab; SANU; and Archipel in Sion.