Yokogawa invests in and teams with Bloom Biorenewables

In Switzerland, Yokogawa Electric Corporation has signed an investment and partnership agreement with Bloom Biorenewables SA (Bloom), a Swiss startup company focusing on the utilization of biomass, with the aim of developing business opportunities in the bioeconomy field. The two companies will collaborate on the commercialization of a breakthrough technology from Bloom that maximizes the extraction of lignin from plant material to replace petrochemicals in a range of chemical products.

Bloom (bloombiorenewables.com) was established in January 2019 as a spinoff from EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. With the mission of making biomass a true alternative to petroleum, the startup is initially focusing on commercializing its new, far more efficient method of extracting lignin, especially monolignol, from biomass material such as wood. Its immediate goal is to demonstrate the technology in a pilot-scale plant.