Periodic Reporting for period 1 - THE GREEN FACTORY (Avant-garde R&D platform and demonstration plant towards efficient industrial biotechnologies) Reporting period: 2019-08-01 to 2019-11-30 Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project Naturamole, a French biotechnology company founded in 2003, has pioneered in the manufacturing of natural molecules through proprietary environmentally friendly enzymatic and microbiological catalytic processes to supply the fragrance and flavour (F&F) industry. We produce, through biocatalysis, 100% natural molecules (mainly esters) at purity >98%. It is estimated that 3.63% of the worldwide CO2 footprint originates from the chemical process industry . Additionally, consumers are demanding products coming from natural sources, fact that has forced the industry to seek for natural ingredients. Green chemistry can lower these CO2 emissions.We have already performed a pilot version of our bioreactor with successful results, and now we plan to scale up our plant to 1500 production tons per year to meet the demand of the F&F, cosmetic and bioprocess development industry, and we will start offering R&D contracts once the demonstration plant is validated. Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far We have obtained feedback form reference customers regarding the scale-up and the new business models. We have assessed the resources needed and set the development plan. We have validated our commercial strategy and updated it. Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far) Naturamole is ready for the Green Factory project, needed to decrease by 88% the costs of production, by 75% the time taken per batch, producing 12 times more per batch, decreasing by 38% the energy needed to produce our molecules and increasing the yield by 7.8%, reaching >97%, which is sought after in the industry. Our production capacity will be 94 times bigger.The development plan starts with the scale-up of the plant, introducing automation, digitalization, continuous biocatalysis, and others. Then, we will set-up our own immobilized enzyme process needed for all our activities, develop new enzymatic esterification process at scale and then we will start the validation by manufacturing esters for the F&F and cosmetics industries (and other chemical industries) directly with early adopters or via our R&D contracts. image-1.png
