Since 2022, I am associate professor in the laboratory CHEMBIOPRO (Laboratoire de Chimie et Biotechnologie des Produits naturels) at the University of Reunion Island. My research topics are focused on aromatic and medicinal plants. I mainly work on valorisation of plants and co-products through characterization of active compounds for cosmetics or pharmaceutics applications. 

Valorisation of terpenes from Citrus peel waste 

Terpenes are widely distributed compounds with a range of interesting industrial applications. Naturally occurring as major compound in several plants, cyclic monoterpenes are not valorised in the perfumery industry because of their high oxidation activity towards oxidants such as dioxygen.  Limonene, a cyclic monoterpene is an important bio-sourced component present in Citrus peels and can be produced on an industrial scale especially by the fruit juice industry in Reunion Island. Limonene represents more than 90% of tangor peel oil, which is not valorised yet in Reunion Island. Thus, it is an inexpensive precursor of flavour compounds. The project TERPENOX (FEDER funding) focused on the transformation of limonene and other monoterpenes into useful products. The transformation has been proceeded by catalytic oxidation using different metal catalysts through a modified Mukaiyama process. The reaction allowed the conversion of 95% of the limonene and a selectivity of 61% for limonene-1,2-oxide, the precursor of the flavour and fragrance agent trans-carveol.