Agropolymer Engineering and Emerging Technologies
Particularly in tropical countries, plant biomass plays host to numerous biocatalytic activities, which can be optimized using lipid biotechnologies and rational functionalization of these resources. This rationalization may involve several types of reaction, depending on the desired result: improving nutritional properties, improving the biological properties of active ingredients, and modifying the surface properties of macromolecules and composite foods.
The unit works along three main complementary lines, corresponding to the successive phases of food product processing: the dissociation of native structures and accompanying generation of agropolymers, their assembly and formation of complex structures including for example latex and packaging materials, functionalization of those structures, and their physicochemical and microbiological stabilization. The aims are to develop new products derived from oils and fats, improve the quality of existing products and optimize co-products and byproducts.
- La recherche agronomique pour le développement (Cirad), France
- Montpellier SupAgro, France
- Institut national de la recherche agronomique (INRA), France
- University of Montpellier 2 (UM2), France
- University of Montpellier 1 (UM1), France
- AgroParisTech (Institut des sciences et industries du vivant et de l'environnement), France