Conference Speakers

Sofien Bouzouita

Innovation Manager, Fibroline SA

BIOGRAPHY

Sofien Bouzouita is the Innovation Manager at Fibroline, a French company specializing in dry powder impregnation technologies for technical textiles and composites. He holds a PhD in Materials Engineering from École Centrale of Lyon (France), with research focused on optimizing natural fiber-reinforced composites.

With over 15 years at Fibroline, he has gained extensive experience in leading complex, disruptive, and cross-functional projects. For many years, he has been heading the company’s innovation team, working across various sectors including medical, filtration, composites, and technical yarns, driving the development of cutting-edge solutions across industries.

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Disruptive Dry Powder Impregnation Solutions for Flax Fiber Intermediate Products

Fibroline’s dry powder impregnation technology represents a breakthrough in the manufacturing of technical textiles and composites. Particularly well-suited to natural fibers, this innovative process enables highly homogeneous impregnation and functionalization of a wide range of base material constructions, using various types of additives, resin chemistries, and loadings. The technology has led to the development of multiple flax fiber-based intermediate products for composite applications in the automotive, marine, and sports industries. It replaces high-energy, solvent- and water-based processes such as dip coating. Depending on the application, the process allows both low binder loadings (<5%) for bonded flax fibers and high resin content (~50% wt) for semi-pregs in sheet or tape form.

These products clearly demonstrate the technology’s ability to address current sustainability challenges while maintaining high mechanical performance. As a dry process, it eliminates the need for liquids (solvents or water), thereby avoiding the release of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), wastewater generation, and significantly reducing energy consumption. Comparative life cycle assessments (LCA) have highlighted the substantial environmental benefits of dry powder impregnation.