Maxime Parot at Tempête des sciences 2026: wood biorefining at the heart of innovation!
On April 16, 2026, Cégep Garneau held a new edition of Tempête des sciences, its biennial scientific conference, bringing together the natural sciences student community around the theme « Crossing knowledge, creating tomorrow». This event highlights interdisciplinarity and scientific innovation as essential drivers for better understanding current issues and actively contributing to addressing contemporary challenges.
Designed to encourage direct contact with current university research and its practical applications, the conference offers students a valuable opportunity to broaden their scientific horizons and discover current research perspectives.
Within this framework, Maxime Parot presented a lecture entitled « Turning wood into a battery or vanilla flavoring is possible! » , an accessible and engaging science outreach activity.
The presentation highlighted the unsuspected potential of wood, far beyond its traditional uses such as construction or heating. A truly multifaceted resource, wood can be transformed through biorefining, an innovative chemical approach that makes it possible to produce high-value materials and substances.
Through concrete and up-to-date examples, the conference illustrated how wood chemistry can lead to surprising applications, such as batteries, vanilla flavouring, carbon fibre, bioplastics, and explosives. This exploration helped demonstrate how chemical research contributes to the development of innovative, sustainable, and forward-looking solutions.
Through this activity, Maxime Parot reaffirms the importance of scientific knowledge dissemination and actively contributes to sparking curiosity in the next generation of scientists, inspiring future researchers to take an interest in current research challenges.
Summary of the presentation
Wood is a resource… full of resources! Far beyond construction or heating, it hides immense potential, capable of leading to surprising applications such as batteries, vanilla, or even explosives. This talk offers an accessible and fascinating dive into the world of biorefining, an approach that allows wood to be chemically transformed into high-value materials and products. Through concrete and up-to-date examples, this science outreach presentation shows how wood chemistry opens the door to innovative, sustainable, and sometimes unexpected solutions.