Institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement

INRAE (NATIONAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR AGRICULTURE, FOOD AND ENVIRONMENT) is Europe’s top agricultural research institute and the world’s number two center for agricultural sciences. With more than 9,000 permanent staff members dispatched in 300 research laboratories and experimental units for an annual budget of 900 M€, INRAE scientists are working towards solutions for society’s challenges regarding agriculture, food & feed, environment. The INRAE partner laboratory, LBE (Laboratory of Environmental Engineering), is located in Narbonne (south of France) and has a renowned expertise in environmental bio-refining, studying and designing processes to treat and valorize wastes. LBE has been working on anaerobic digestion for more than 30 years, on various feedstock pretreatments and dark fermentation for more than 15 years. LBE is fully equipped to carry out research on environmental biotechnology processes and organic waste characterization (CHNS elemental analysis, measurement of COD, TOC, nitrogen, anions, cations, volatile fatty acids, organic micropollutants in aqueous and solid phases, methods based on infrared spectroscopy or 3D fluorescence) as well as state-of-the-art equipment for process monitoring and modelling, and soil mineralization tests for organic fertilizers. It owns the Environmental Biotechnology and Biorefinery platform (BIO2E, DOI: 10.15454/1.557234103446854E12) consisting of 3500 m² of laboratories and technological halls with experimental resources dedicated to WWTP and organic residues from fundamental research to technology transfer: bioreactors from 1 L to 1 m³, and advanced analytical equipment for substrates and microflora characterization and process performance monitoring.