A forward-thinking partnership between Sugar Research Limited (SRL) and Queensland University of Technology two years ago was an important factor for a revolutionary research program aiming to develop bioethanol from sugarcane.
QUT's Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research & Commercialisation), Professor Arun Sharma, and the Chairman of the SRL Board, Mr Mark Hochen, said the partnership struck by QUT with SRL had played a key role in plans announced last week by Premier Anna Bligh for the establishment of a biofuels research centre at QUT, and the construction of a pilot plant at the Racecourse Sugar Mill in Mackay.
"The partnership allowed QUT to complement the processing capability of SRL, whose membership includes most Australian sugar mills, with the university's world-leading plant biotechnology program," Professor Sharma said.
Twenty researchers from SRL's research centre in Mackay joined QUT as part of this major sugar research initiative in 2005.
With this expertise, QUT was able to attract a $3.1 million grant from the Queensland Government's Smart State Innovation Building Fund to commence construction of the pilot plant in Mackay, which has now been further leveraged with a grant of $3.4 million from the Commonwealth's National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy.
Additionally QUT has invested several million dollars of its own funds to further expand its research capacity and infrastructure in this area of the Queensland economy.
"All this contributed to the signing this week of a collaborative agreement between QUT, its commercialisation arm qutbluebox, the local biotech start-up Farmacule BioIndustries, and Syngenta - the world's largest agribusiness company - to form the "Syngenta Centre for Sugarcane Biofuel Development" at QUT," Professor Sharma said.
Syngenta last year reported a turnover of US$8.1 billion and spends around US$800 million per year on research and development.
The project will use technologies to develop sugarcane that is targeted at producing cost-effective bioethanol from cellulose, and will span enzymology through to commercial scale demonstration.
As part of the deal, Syngenta will locate a number of its scientists at QUT and bring its intellectual property and expertise to the collaboration.
"This is a great outcome for the Australian sugar industry," Mr Hochen said.
"We had anticipated the strong synergy between QUT research related to the sugar industry and SRL research activities would produce great things and we have not been disappointed.
"We are already seeing sustainability benefits to the sugar industry, including commercialisation opportunities which we are working to bring to the grower market.
"It is our strong belief that Queensland sugar mills will benefit by the production of cellulosic ethanol and the growers will benefit by the development of new varieties of sugar cane."
Media contact:
Professor Arun Sharma, QUT, on 07 3138 2132
Mr Mark Hochen, Sugar Research Limited, on 07 4126 4426
Janne Rayner, QUT media, 07 3138 2361 or j2.rayner@qut.edu.au
