Our Science & Technologies

Our Science

Biological streams consist mainly of water and complex mixtures of molecules, such as lipids, proteins and carbohydrates.

Added-value products are typically purified and dried for stability and ease of use. They must retain bioactivity, functionality, food compatibility and be produced in a ‘green’ manner.

Using a whole-of-resource approach, our aim is to create little waste, use minimal amounts of chemicals and generate multiple product opportunities utilising as much of the secondary stream as feasible.

To meet these demands, we provide industry with access to a platform of enabling technologies and each of our R&D partners has relevant science expertise and capabilities. Areas of expertise include enzymatic processing, supercritical systems, thermal processing, fermentation, analysis, scale-up conversion and robust decision-making modelling.

Our Technologies

We use a range of technologies in order to add value:

• Extraction – direct recovery of high value, low volume constituents. For example, rendering, supercritical extraction, or purification.
• High value processing – transforming functionality. Fermentative or chemical conversion of unprocessed, pre-extracted or deconstructed residuals to generate new high value co-products such as animal supplements and functional lipids.
• Reconstruction – putting things together. Combining functionalised bulk materials with natural or synthetic polymers to produce novel bio-composites.
• Deconstruction – pulling things apart. Hydrothermal, chemical or biological conversion of bulk residual materials to recover platform chemicals (e.g. acetate), nutrients, energy or rendered animal feeds.