L’Oréal takes part in commercial bio-isobutene project

L’Oréal has tied up with Global Bioenergies, IBN-One and Cristal Union on a project to develop a commercial bio-isobutene facility.

This is a 44-month project supported by the French Government’s Investissements d’Avenir programme, which has committed to providing €9m for the project.

Funding will be paid in several instalments, with the first being 15% of the total funding.

Under this partnership, L’Oréal will test batches of compounds drawn from the bio-sourced isobutene to use in cosmetic products.

Global Bioenergies will serve as the project coordinator and will be responsible for completing industrial development of the process.

IBN-One will make life cycle analyses, engineer design work of the plant, as well as conduct validation of market value of derivatives meant for fuels and cosmetics, reported European-biotechnology-news.com.

The plant will be operational by 2019 and will have a production capacity of 50,000t.

Once the facility becomes operational, L’Oréal plans to buy the end-product.