Natural Resource Canada on Sept. 8 announced a $4.5 million investment in CRB Innovations, a technology company based in Sherbrooke, Quebec, that is developing a commercial pilot project to convert forestry residuals and other biomass sources into intermediate products that will be converted into biofuels and coproducts, such as plastics.

The project is funded through Natural Resources Canada's Clean Growth Program, which invests in clean technology research and development projects in Canada's energy, mining and forest sectors. The program is a $155-million investment fund that helps emerging clean technologies further reduce their impacts on air, land and water while enhancing competitiveness and creating jobs.

The Clean Growth Program also provided support to CRB Innovations through its Science and Technology Assistance for Cleantech initiative for the capacity to collaborate with CanmetENERGY–Ottawa to convert CRB Innovations' mid-products to drop-in biofuels for transportation applications.

According to Natural Resources Canada, the Quebec government has also invested $2.5 million in CRB Innovations through its Wood Innovation Program along with $1.575 thorough its Technoclimat Program.

"The support of the Clean Growth Program is decisive for implementing the innovative and disruptive biomass fractionation catalytic technology being developed by CRB,” said Esteban Chornet, scientific director of CRB Innovations. “It is such technology that produces the intermediates that are subsequently converted into defined and marketable bio-based products by the partners, thus enhancing societal sustainability, wealth and opportunities for present and future generations. The support of the Clean Growth Program, including its STAC component, has triggered the interest of two Quebec government programs, now committed to the project led by CRB."