Michelin ResiCare says it has reached a new milestone in the industrialisation of its bio-based resins with the establishment of a first Industrial production line for Its DragonFly project at Ajinomoto’s industrial site in Nesle (Somme, France).
Following French government funded project Cerisea, which aims to establish Europe’s first 5-HMF production value chain, the DragonFly project, which is also funded by the French government and is managed by ADEME (the French Agency for Ecological Transition), will secure a second strategic pillar essential to the production and industrialisation of bio-based molecules.
DragonFly’s objective is to industrialise the fermentation-based production of a bio-based aromatic monomer, intended for use in the resins developed by Michelin ResiCare.
The partnership between Michelin ResiCare and Ajinomoto, a leading player in the bioproduction of ingredients through fermentation and in solutions for the food industry, signed last April, marks the operational launch of this new phase of the project.
Construction began in May 2026 at the Nesle site, with a key milestone ahead: the commissioning of the industrial production line, scheduled for the beginning of the second quarter of 2027. This facility will validate the technology under real-world operating conditions.
Thanks to the technology developed through the DragonFly project, France will, for the first time, have a competitive industrial value chain unique in the world and capable of producing this strategic molecule from bio-based feedstocks, rather than petrochemical sources.
The fermentation process relies on a microorganism strain developed in collaboration with Alderys (a Givaudan Group company), one of the project’s key technological building blocks. Its performance was validated at industrial scale through a previous initiative, BioImpulse.
Work carried out to date indicates the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with the production of this molecule by up to 96% compared with its fossil-based equivalent.
These bio-based resins will serve a wide range of applications, including construction and furniture, composites, electronics, automotive and transportation, aerospace, and space industries.
The selection of Ajinomoto’s site in Nesle is based both on the opportunity to leverage existing industrial infrastructure and on Ajinomoto’s recognised expertise in developing and operating industrial fermentation processes to produce high-value-added molecules.
DragonFly is a key enabler for the industrialisation of the solutions developed by Michelin ResiCare. Combined with the CERISEA project dedicated to bio-based 5-HMF, it helps secure the supply of two strategic monomers used in the company’s next-generation resins.