'Green' charcoal from sugar biomass

"The problem is that this reservoir was untapped," Justin Murray, grower affairs manager for the Mpumalanga Cane Growers Association said.

"We are developing an innovative and scalable way of using sugar cane biomass to increase growers' revenue and generate value from this waste product," he says.

"Growers want to find alternative uses for sugar cane biomass because the sugar sector is in trouble," Murray said.

The cane growing sector had not made decent returns for a decade and growers are now exiting the industry. A market for fibre could improve the revenue that farmers earn.

After several tests using torrefaction technology, the association believes an opportunity exists to establish and run a plant costing about R20m, which would offer sugar cane farmers a market for their products.

The technology has been developed by Stellenbosch University, Tshwane University of Technology and engineering company Aurecon.

Source: Sapa via I-Net Bridge