Lavoisier Composites is a young start-up that reinvents the materials cycle by transforming linear models into circular ones.
The company brings together a vast array of experiences and know-how to eco-design, demonstrate and manufacture innovative products for luxury and high-tech applications.
Based on customer specifications, including aesthetic and structural requirements, the company leads the overall development of exclusive materials maximizing the use of bio- or plant-based resources, or the reuse of industrial by-products from industries such as aerospace.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
Lavoisier Composites: Since 2018, the year it was founded in Lyon FRANCE, Lavoisier Composites has capitalized on the materials and process development experience of co-founders Esteban (CEO) and Guillaume (Managing Director). Two mechanical and chemical engineers who have been involved in the development of carbon fiber composites, mainly for aircraft manufacturers, during a total of 25 years.
Luxury watchmaking was the first area of expansion, as the company collaborated with prestigious Swiss maisons to launch exceptional timepieces.
Since then, many other areas of luxury have been explored such as jewelry, luggage, automotive, wines and spirits, cosmetics and perfumes.
E.E: What’s the news about new products?
Lavoisier Composites: In 2023, Lavoisier Composites launched a new offer called CIRCULARITY at JEC World in Paris.
In practical terms, CIRCULARITY enables any company wishing to eco-design composite parts to receive support in choosing the most suitable thermoplastic or thermosetting matrix materials and their transformation processes, in order to obtain a proof of concept as well as technical and economic validation before moving on to series production.
CIRCULARITY favors the use of bio- or agro-sourced by-products and closed-loop materials to reduce the environmental impact of the composite parts developed. This approach avoids waste while creating traceable, controlled reuse loops to guarantee performance and compliance with regulations.
With CIRCULARITY from Lavoisier Composites, participate in waste prevention by taking advantage of the creation of circularity loops to eco-design and manufacture more sustainable products.
E.E: What are the ranges of products?
Lavoisier Composites: More than a dozen ranges of composite materials have been developed from industrial by-products such as CARBONIUM® and STELLIUM® using aerospace-grade carbon fibers, PERALIUM® based on glass fibers used to manufacture helicopter blades, or COLORIUM® combining textile residues of different colors. NATURALIUM® is the first range of composite materials developed to maximize the use of biological or plant resources in the manufacture of aesthetic and structural parts. All these ranges of eco-sourced materials are manufactured exclusively by Lavoisier Composites to support the development of its customers’ products.
In practice, Lavoisier Composites is NOT another materials supplier.
As many valuable industrial residues and natural resources remain unused on the planet’s surface, Lavoisier Composites’ value proposition is to avoid the use of non-renewable resources. The company’s DNA is based on Antoine Lavoisier’s famous and inspiring saying “Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed”. This philosophy offers numerous opportunities to reuse unused industrial or natural resources to develop unlimited ranges of materials with infinite aesthetic applications.
E.E: At what stage is the market where you are currently active?
Lavoisier Composites: Lavoisier Composites has been soon profitable with several products and processes that have been implemented with recurring part production for the luxury sector.
From ideation to production, the development process requires several stages of trials, demonstrations and validations which are mandatory to secure the industrialization phase. Lavoisier Composites invests heavily in Research and Innovation to demonstrate the technical and economic viability of circular economy projects. As each project and sector is different, the complementary expertise of the Lavoisier Composites team is an asset in leading product development projects with a holistic approach to environmental foot printing over the entire life cycle. This is the reason why luxury and high tech sectors are very demanding of our expertise.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
Lavoisier Composites: Sustainability has become a major theme in most companies’ strategic roadmaps. Previously, it was primarily a concern for communications and marketing departments, but in recent years it has become an integral part of corporate strategy. End customers in all B2C and B2B markets are increasingly sensitive to the environmental footprint of their products and activities. This calls for major changes in the way we design and manufacture products. Considering that almost 80% of life-cycle costs and impacts are fixed at the design phase, it is now well understood that we need to change NOW the way we think about products and services.
At Lavoisier Composites, we believe we can help our customers take a more ambitious approach by reconsidering their own residues and thinking about reusing them to make new products. This is what CIRCULARITY means to Lavoisier Composites: changing the paradigm of discarding valuable materials instead of making the necessary efforts to reuse them.
E.E: What are the most innovative products marketed?
Lavoisier Composites: Lavoisier Composites aims to demonstrate the possibilities of composite materials for very ambitious projects:
STELLIUM® is the type of carbon fiber-based composite material that pushes the limits even further. Very subtle by day, this range of material reveals its uniqueness at night, displaying a singular phosphorescent pattern.
Lavoisier Composites’ transformation approach also enabled us to develop composite materials incorporating micronized metal particles from a legendary aircraft for a very exclusive project.
We enjoy working with customers who want to implement significant projects that reinvent the materials cycle.
E.E: What estimations do you have for the rest of 2023?
Lavoisier Composites: We are fortunate to be able to say that every year brings its share of new research and innovation projects. The company’s business is profitable from the very first accounting period, and grows from year to year. It’s great to be able to demonstrate the technical and economic relevance of innovative approaches for sourcing raw materials, designing and manufacturing functional prototypes.
But more importantly, we’re putting more and more of these projects into production.
That’s what Lavoisier Composites is all about: realizing the dream of products with the smallest possible environmental footprint.
Demonstrators and prototypes are only the first step in the validation process, but we work hard to transform these prototypes into recurring production that will sustain this virtuous process. After 5 years, this is what Lavoisier Composites is undertaking, launching the construction of its new headquarters and production unit for 2025.