Government has launched a R37.5 million biorefinery facility in Durban, which is set to extract maximum value from biomass waste.
The facility, which is a first in South Africa, will support innovation in a range of industries with an initial focus on the financially strained forestry sector. Biorefinery in South Africa’s pulp and paper industry is practiced on a very limited scale. Wood, pulp and paper waste ends up in landfill sites or is burnt, stockpiled or even pumped out to sea. The potential to extract value from it is not realised, which means lost opportunities for the country’s economy.The potential to do more
Prof Bruce Sithole, CSIR Manager for Forestry Products, emphasised the potential of the BIDF to be of service to other sectors, for example, exploring the use of chicken feathers in high-value products. Small quantities of waste chicken feathers are processed into feed for livestock, but the majority of the waste is traditionally disposed of by burning or landfilling. However, the BIDF is demonstrating that keratin can be successfully extracted from the poultry by-product to be used in high-value applications, such as nanostructured materials for biomedical applications.“The BIDF is accessible to large industry and Small, Medium and Micro-sized Enterprises (SMMEs) for their research and development, analytical and pilot scale testing, evaluation, processing and development of technologies for processing biomass. Some of the equipment at the BIDF is unique in South Africa. The facility is home to highly-skilled chemists, engineers and biologists who are well-versed in technologies for beneficiation and valorisation of biomass,” said Sithole.
