Arsenal and France midfielder Mathieu Flamini has revealed that he is one of the people behind a bio-based company that has developed a process to produce levulinic acid on an industrial scale.
In an interview with the Sun on Sunday, the 31-year-old, who has played over 150 times for the club and has won the Italian league championship with AC Milan, said that his company GF Biochemicals has become the first in the world to mass produce the acid and enter a market that he says could be worth £20 billion.
Levulinic acid has been identified by the US Department of Energy as one of the top value-added chemicals that can be created from biomass and can be used to create biofuels, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, polymers and solvents, amongst other applications.