She has revolutionized chemistry by making it rhyme with ecology. Claude Grison has just been awarded the European Inventor 2022 in the "Research" category by the European Patent Office . A look back at the career of the director of the ChimEco laboratory, for whom dialogue and transdisciplinarity are the keys to innovation.
Not really an ecologist, and not just a chemist, she defines herself as an " ecochemist ". " Chemistry and ecology are two fields that are not radically different but complementary. I am in contact with both, and this is what has allowed me to break down the boundaries between these disciplines to bring out new ideas," explains Claude Grison.
For Claude Grison, who is now director of the Bio-inspired Chemistry and Ecological Innovations laboratory, interdisciplinarity is a necessity, " our views and knowledge are complementary. It was in 2007 that Claude Grison first became interested in ecology, thanks to the requests of four students in preparatory classes at the Lycée Joffre: " They asked me to help them with a project on depollution by plants, and that's when I realized that some plants were surviving in hostile environments, on soils that were toxic for all other forms of life. Thanks to being a teacher, I changed my research activities! "
"Vegetable Follies
Intrigued and stimulated by this subject, which was not in her field, Claude Grison immediately wanted to know more about these "plant follies". Thus, in 2008, the researcher joined the Centre for Functional and Evolutionary Ecology. "I was the first chemist at the CEFE," recalls Claude Grison. The knowledge of ecology allows us to have new ideas in chemistry to create novelty.
It was in this laboratory that she began working on plants that hyperaccumulate metallic elements. Their particularity? They extract the polluting metals contained in the soil through their roots and accumulate them in their leaves. " For the ecologist, the question is:"Why are the plants there? ". For the chemist it is: " How do they live there? ". These two questions are complementary."
For the ecochemist, a third question then arises: can it be of use? " You also have to ask yourself what this work can bring to society, to ask yourself what meaning you want to give to your research. And Claude Grison has found meaning. First of all, because his work effectively cleans up the soil and restores an ecosystem that has sometimes been severely degraded.
But this is only the tip of the iceberg... " I learned at that time that the resources of certain metallic elements were threatened and that soon there would be no more zinc, for example, even though it is an indispensable catalyst for many chemical reactions ". I learned at that time that the resources of certain metallic elements were threatened and that soon there would be no more zinc, for example, even though it is an essential catalyst for many chemical reactions. This famous zinc that plants extract from the soil and that we find in their leaves... ". And if these plants were the natural reservoir of zinc, the catalyst of tomorrow? And even the ecocatalyst of tomorrow, a new concept was born. " And even a new chemistry, which does without reagents or toxic and polluting solvents, a true ecological chemistry.
Catalyst effect
Very quickly, the results of her work began to flourish, and in 2009ADEME spotted the researcher. " They wanted to offer me the Pollutec-Ademe Prize for Innovative Techniques for the Environment, but to do so, we first had to protect our work and we had not filed a patent. In one week, a record time, it was done. " This first patent, followed by 35 others, marked a turning point in our research. And this Ademe prize has had a catalytic effect on Claude Grison's work, which is developing the use of his hyperaccumulator plants not only in mainland France but also in New Caledonia, where the soil is highly concentrated in nickel.
It is there, in the field, in front of the industrial effluents that contaminate the rivers and end up in the lagoon, that the researcher realizes the importance of water pollution. What if these plant follies could also be used to clean up the water?
An issue taken head-on in the Bio-inspired Chemistry and Ecological Innovations laboratory founded in 2014. " Chemistry had become so important that we could no longer stay at CEFE, from there ChimEco was born ". By 2016, researchers began treating aquatic systems with plants. " They have molecular antennae on the surface of their roots that capture metallic elements ". It is thus 40 species of plants with these properties so special that are identified by the team of Claude Grison, which use the whole plants, living, to capture metals in water.
Restore the environment
The experiment took on another dimension the day Claude Grison and his team found a dead plant in their depollution system. " Dead, it kept the same capacity of depollution! The process then evolved: " From now on, we grind roots to make plant filters that clean up the water. And not just any roots... The chemist-ecologists use invasive species, real ecological disasters in wetlands. The chemist-ecologists use invasive species, which are real ecological disasters in wetlands. " Not only do we clean up the pollution, but we also preserve the biodiversity of these areas," says the specialist.
A revolutionary process with notes of circular economy since the substances extracted from water by plants are then used to produce catalysts of plant origin that allow the production of various molecules needed by sectors such as the pharmaceutical industry for example. It is to valorize these products that the start-up BioInspir, which today employs 10 people, was created in 2020. The company, born from the desire to create a different kind of chemistry, is the only one in the world to master this technology, which uses no chemical input, no solvent and no synthetic reagent.
A new chemistry, with no environmental footprint, which has earned Claude Grison the European Inventor 2022 award in the "Research" category from the European Patent Office.
Discover Claude Grison's work in the latest issue of Lum magazine dedicated to innovation.
Published on: January 26, 2023