#8: Steaks derived from wood, competition with the petrochemical industry, CEO turned CTO - Florence Gschwend

Can we go cold turkey and move away from the crude oil dependence? Will we one day start making food from non-food sources like cellulose? How about pasta with a wood-derived Bolognese sauce? Yucky or yummy?

Together with Florence Gschwend, co-founder and CTO of Lixea, we look at how biochemistry may help solve problems of food scarcity or accelerate transition of our civilisation to zero waste.

Florence Gschwend is co-founder and CTO of Lixea. During her PhD at the Chemical Engineering Department at Imperial College London, she co-invented a process which uses an environmentally friendly solvent to treat waste woody biomass. This process separates different components in wood and agricultural residues. These components, in turn, can then be used to produce new chemicals and materials, shifting our reliance away from petroleum.

Producing chemicals and materials from renewable sources

As Florence explains, at the moment most of the bio-derived products (for example, biofuels) are costly to produce. On the other hand, large amounts of waste wood and agricultural residues are disposed of, without their value being captured. Rice and cereal straws are often left and burned in the fields, causing air pollution.

The solvent co-developed by Florence and colleagues separates the various components that wood and agricultural residues are composed of. Once separated, these components can then be used to create products that can replace petroleum-based chemicals and plastics. Florence goes into detail about the potential impact of this technology.

From the lab to the market - The struggles of funding

Public funding plays a significant role in financing innovative technologies whilst venture capital often shies away. Lixea managed to raise more than 4 million euros of public funding. Yet the conversations with the VC firms have been sluggish. Florence shares her views on why this is the case and how governments make high-risk investments into brand new technologies more attractive for Venture Capital.