LILLE, France—Group Michelin has struck a deal with Tereos Group, a Lille-based sugar producer, covering the industrial transformation of agricultural raw materials into alcohol to fuel the tire maker's “BioButterly” biosourced butadiene production project.
The companies have agreed to pool their respective skills and capabilities to jointly develop innovative biomass transformation processes to support the BioButterfly project. Tereos said.
To do so, the partners will create a structured chain to ensure industrial-scale transformation of agricultural raw materials to secure the long-term supply of biomass.
Michelin disclosed its BioButterfly initiative—which is designed to develop and commercialize butadiene based on bio- logical sources, such as biomass, for making synthetic rubber—on Nov. 8.
Michelin is partnering with Axens, a research unit of IFP Energie Nouvelles of Rueil-Malmaison, France, with the eventual goal of developing sources of renewable raw materials for the production of tires.