This text is part of the special Higher Education notebook
In Saguenay, the new Center for Transformation and Valorization of Bioproducts (CTVB) will allow organizations and researchers in Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean to work hand in hand to find outlets for residues and other plant products.
The result of a long period of reflection, the Center for the transformation and valorization of bioproducts is a shared infrastructure supporting the socio-economic activity of the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region. “It is the culmination of the teaching programs in the chemistry of natural products at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi (UQAC), the research programs on bioproducts developed by the researchers, and the progressive structuring of a small industrial cluster in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region around bioproducts,” summarizes Claude Gilbert, president of the consortium which manages the CTVB. “There was a desire to have a research and development infrastructure that would support the research and development projects of professors at UQAC and these industries. »
History of a regional mobilization
At the intersection between local businesses and organizations and university and college research, the CTVB is a research and development platform dedicated to bioproducts from boreal biomass. This infrastructure will make it possible to develop and characterize plant-based products for use in the pharmaceutical, cosmeceutical and food sectors.
If the creation of the CTVB has been in the air for several years, it was in the winter of 2023 that the infrastructure was officially inaugurated, after work to fit out the building on the UQAC campus, and the installation and calibration of cutting-edge laboratory equipment. To make the establishment of such a center possible, UQAC called on its Center for Entrepreneurship and Swarming (CEE-UQAC), an independent NPO which promotes entrepreneurship among college and university students in the region. CEE-UQAC succeeded in obtaining funding to equip the CTVB. Then an NPO formed by a consortium of users (educational establishment, industry, MRC, etc.) was set up to ensure its management.
Local solutions to local problems
CEE-UQAC has also acquired a license to carry out enzymatic extraction, “which makes it possible to take a biomass [par exemple de l’écorce d’épinette] and, by adding enzymes rather than solvents, to extract products that retain their green characteristics,” explains Mr. Gilbert. Residues from the boreal forest or the region’s agriculture could thus be revalorized using technology developed by the French company Biolie.
“An initiative of this kind promotes biomass in ways other than manufacturing two-by-fours,” notes Mr. Gilbert. By-products from boreal forest processing and agriculture in the region could be used for other purposes; for example, we could highlight the antibacterial properties of balsam poplar buds, a species often used in the construction sector.
UQAC researchers have also been working for several years on ways to help potato producers in the region, who are struggling with scab disease. A biocompound is found in black spruce bark that limits the spread of the disease in the soil and on potatoes. “We are at the stage of extracting the biocompounds, testing them in the camps, and validating their effectiveness over a few years. If the funding is there, the project will be carried out thanks to the CTVB infrastructure,” says Mr. Gilbert.
Fruitful collaborations
The CTVB makes state-of-the-art equipment available to researchers and graduate students at UQAC. “We already have laboratories in the field, but we are talking here about a unique technology,” underlines Mohamed Bouazara, vice-rector for research, creation and innovation at UQAC. “All these projects involve graduate students and participate in their training,” he adds.
With this initiative, companies benefit from the university’s research and training capacity. It is in fact the entrepreneurs who will contact the researchers according to their needs. “The CTVB creates a direct link with SMEs, which should not be neglected. It’s important to work on applied projects,” says Mr. Bouazara. “Small and medium-sized businesses are not able to acquire and maintain such high-performance infrastructure. The interest is therefore to pool the infrastructure and align it with college and university research capacity,” concludes Mr. Gilbert.
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