The Atlantic Biorefinery Conference will take place Monday to Wednesday in Halifax. Now in its fifth year, the three-day event aims to spark new projects that will turn natural resources into value-added products and business opportunities.

Biorefining is a set of technologies that enables the transformation of natural resources and industrial by-products into value-added products.

Over a dozen speakers are travelling from the U.S., Europe and elsewhere in Canada to speak on topics that include agricultural biogas generation, forest nutrient management, brewery waste-water treatment, the bioconversion of coal, building biogas facilities, and the development of the renewable gas industry in the Netherlands.

The speaker sessions will take place on Tuesday May 31 and Wednesday June 1.

Victor Oh, from Lux Research in Boston, MA will speak about how Atlantic Canada can position itself within the bio-economy. Dr. Laurent Bernier, Senior Vice President of BioAmber Canada, will discuss how the integrated biorefineries of Bazancourt-Pomacle in France could serve as an example for Atlantic Canada.

Natural Products Canada Launches in PEI

“Our goal is to help researchers and businesses develop technologies to grow our economy…” said Josée Landry, manager of the Biorefinery Scale-Up Centre at Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick, one of the organizing groups.

Springboard Atlantic has been involved in the Atlantic Biorefinery Conference since its beginning.

“We see it as a key opportunity for researchers and entrepreneurs to exchange ideas that spark action…” said Chris Mathis, Springboard President and CEO.

The first day of the conference, will feature tours at local industry and research facilities.

Participants will visit: Perennia Innovation Park, which helps farmers, fishermen, and food processors develop new value-added products; Maritime BioExtracts, which produces bioactive natural health products, functional foods and nutraceuticals; Hefler Quality Lumber, which operates a biomass to energy plant.

Other destinations include: the National Research Council’s Ketch Harbour Marine Research Station, which develops methods to convert algae biomass into high-value products; the Innovacorp Demonstration Center, an 88-acre commercial development and testing facility for bioresource technologies and Cellufuel, which makes synthetic diesel from woody biomass at demonstration scale.