Proserpine commissions furfural plant
Last Updated on Saturday, 06 November 2010 14:35
The North Queensland Registered reports on the start-up of PSM Biorefinery: REALISING their future depended on the mill producing more than raw sugar the Proserpine Cooperative Sugar Milling Association board in 2002 decided to find a way of value-adding its under utilised cane fibre (bagasse).
Their investigations turned up furfural (plant resins) which could be extracted from the bagasse before it was used to fire the boilers.
The study found it would be profitable at the existing value of $800/tonne, so the cooperative purchased the patent to the SupraYield extraction process from its South African inventors.
Not only was SupraYield the lowest cost and highest yielding extraction process available but being a closed system it overcame the environmental problems that limited furfural production to Third World countries.
Owning the patent also gave the cooperative the opportunity to license other businesses to use the process.
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