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| Photo courtsey CRC for Sugar Industry innovation through Biotechnology |
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Imagine a world-class, export-oriented manufacturing industry based on a renewable resource in regional Queensland - a very smart industry, based on biotechnology.
That’s what scientists at the world’s leading centre for sugar cane biotechnology, the Cooperative Research Centre for Sugar Industry Innovation through Biotechnology (SIIB), are working to achieve.
They’re conducting research into using sugar cane as a biotechnology factory, manufacturing bio-degradable plastics.
This research is timely, since the world sugar price has been depressed in recent years and Queensland’s cane farmers have been seeking alternative uses for their crop.
The SIIB’s work has been recognised through the award of a Queensland Government Smart State Fellowship to one of its members, Dr Annathurai Gnanasambandam, for the success they’ve already achieved.
The research involves inserting bacterial genes into sugar cane plants so that they accumulate a compound known as biodegradable biopolymer, which can be manufactured into a range of plastics. The range includes biodegradable plastic bags and packaging materials, automobile parts and plastics for the electronics and medical industries.
SIIB’s chief executive, Dr Peter Twine, said the market potential for
these products was immense.
“We’ve already proved that the biotechnology works, it’s
a question of getting the price down so that this process can successfully
compete with plastics produced from oil, which dominate the world market,”
he said.
“The price gap is closing. Five years ago, it cost 40c a unit to produce plastics from oil – now it’s about $1. Our process cost is estimated at between $1.50 and $2.”
Already niche markets are opening up. For instance, some maritime law requires that plastics used at sea be degradable and companies already face huge costs in disposing of plastic components no longer in use.
“Our greatest advantages over oil-based plastics are that sugar cane
breathes in carbon dioxide and stores the carbon as sugars, while manufacturing
plastics from oil generates the carbon dioxide.
“Sugar cane, unlike oil, is a renewable resource and here in Queensland
we grow about 35 million tonnes a year. We also have a wonderful sugar cane
transport system in place which, for example, maize producers in North America
don’t have.”
(Maize is another crop that can be adapted to produce these plastics.)
Dr Twine said sugar cane had advantages over other plant sources for plastics.
“It’s beautiful to work with. Sugar cane doesn’t self-propagate in the wild and doesn’t cross-pollinate with other crops or native plants in Australia. So concerns regarding biosecurity in relation to genetically modified cane should be readily alleviated.
“We’re some time away from being able to successfully compete with oil-derived plastics but our work is being monitored by a number of large industrial manufacturers and Asia would be our major market.”
Last reviewed 19 January 2006