|
 View the Presentation (PDF)
Industry Sector: Agroindustry & Construction Material Industry
Purpose and Origin: Technology developed by a team led by Prof. Boris Shipunov, Vice Rector of the Altai State University in Western Siberia, as a specific downstream application of TDF's cavitation technology.
Technical Detail: The technology consists of a device and of a process method, and combines mechanical, thermal and chemical treatment of any plant material biomass. Plant raw material is subjected to hydrodynamic cavitation in a water or water-organic medium. As a result of the high temperatures and pressures generated in the cavitation zones the resulting mass is a viscous gel containing lignin, cellulose and hemi-cellulose. The gel can be compressed and heat-cured to produce woodboards for construction in a process that requires much less additives than other existing processes, and can be modulated to any required tensile strength of the finished product. When the input biomass is rich in protein and starch the gel can also be used as animal feedstock without any further processing. As animal feedstock it has demonstrated a substantially higher animal acceptance level than dry biomass.
Potential Applications: Production of: (i) wood boards without the use of environmentally unfriendly additives, and (ii) animal feedstock, from plant biomass that otherwise would need to be disposed of. Since the device can be made to any size the technology can be applied to any required output, from individual small farms to large scale industrial units. The plant material biomass may be agricultural waste material.
Market Potential: The lower production costs and higher environmental benefits of the technology are likely to attract a substantial interest from the construction industry. In addition individual farms would be interested in the animal feedstock application, which enables the use of plant waste material that otherwise would have to be disposed of, while resulting in a product with a higher animal acceptance level than dry biomass.
Marketing Category: Laboratory tests completed, and a number of special cavitation machines have been produced and tested. The technology can be licensed as well as exploited by the company for its own account by: (i) setting up one or more woodboard production facility, and (ii) producing and selling small size cavitation machines worldwide for individual farm use, or (iii) a combination of both.
Costs and Limitations: The process is very cost effective since it: (i) substantially reduces the chemical inputs currently required in the production of woodboard, and (ii) can make use of waste material.
Alternatives Process: No alternative technology is known to exist today, which combines the unique mechanical/physical and the chemicals aspects of cavitation for any of the applications of this technology.
|
