Chairholder Profile

Yacine Boumghar

CÉPROCQ
Collège de Maisonneuve

Chair title

NSERC Industrial Research Chair for Colleges in Agroforestry Extraction

Chair program

Industrial Research Chair for Colleges

Role

Research Chairholder since 2012

Summary

The emerging bioeconomy is providing promising new opportunities for the development of bioproducts from forestry and agriculture biomass. While significant progress has been made in advancing knowledge in the conversion of forestry residues, developments in the agroforestry sector require a better understanding of the chemical composition of forestry biomass from a variety of different sources and of the availability of effective and reliable production technologies with a low environmental impact.

It is against this backdrop that Dr. Yacine Boumghar, with his expertise in extraction and separation bioprocesses and in the scale-up of pilot-scale processes, will lead an Industrial Research Chair program on the conversion of agroforestry biomass and the commercial scale-up of agroforestry extraction processes.

Dr. Boumghar intends to make the Chair a hub of knowledge on agroforestry extraction and an incubator for leading edge technology solutions to address community and industry needs, with the following aims:

• develop linkages between the initiatives of government, associations and industry in order to pool efforts and coordinate innovative actions;
• break down barriers between the forestry and agroforestry sectors in respect of scientific and economic issues and promote integrated technology solutions;
• develop extraction, purification and separation bioprocesses;
• develop analytical tools to determine the chemical composition of agroforestry extracts;
• assess the biological activity of the extracts or fractions of extracts produced.

The Chair will meet its expectations by achieving the following objectives:

• establish a sequence of processes for obtaining tannin-rich extracts from bark and other forestry residues;
• optimize the supercritical extraction of triterpenoids (betulinic acid and betulinol) present in the bark of white birch;
• establish a production platform for the extraction of forest biomass from various species in Quebec;
• establish a conversion platform for the utilization of berries selected for their antioxidant potential (e.g., blueberry, bilberry, sea buckthorn);
• perform biochemical characterization of the various extracts, establish a chromatographic profile, measure polyphenols, anthocyanins and proanthocyanidins and determine the antioxidant potential.

In addition to its industry partners, the Chair will establish scientific and technical collaborations with the Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, the École Polytechnique de Montréal, the Université d'Avignon et des Pays de Vaucluse (France) and Natural Resources Canada's CanmetENERGY to promote pre-commercialization of products and bioactive ingredients on the Canadian market that offer an alternative to conventional synthesis products used in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals, functional foods or nutraceuticals.

Partners

• DuPont Canada Inc.
• Coopérative forestière des Hautes Laurentides

Contact information

CÉPROCQ
Collège de Maisonneuve
300 Sherbrooke Street East
CÉPROCQ
Montréal, Québec
H1X 2A2

Tel.: 514-255-4444, ext. 6259
Fax: 514-251-3696
Email: yboumghar@cmaisonneuve.qc.ca