DAVID UNWIN/Stuff
GreenChem chief executive Kevin Snowdon has opened a research and development centre in Marton.
A research and development centre producing the “ingredients” for plastic alternatives and environmentally friendly products has started work in Rangitīkei.
GreenChem chief executive Kevin Snowdon opened its new facility in Marton on Friday, where they have a pressure cooker machine that breaks wood down to lignin.
Lignin can be used as biofuel and turned into biopolymers for compostable plastics.
Wood chips and a blend of ethanol and water are put into the pressure cooker then heated. This produces a liquid that high-value lignin is extracted from.
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“It’s transformational to a business,” Snowdon said. “We’re trying to make money and at the end of the day climate change is not going to be solved by putting costs up.
“It’s going to be solved by finding commercial entities that can make a buck.”
He said the process created four products: lignin, which can be used as a substitute for oil-based products; hemicellulose, which can be turned into a sugar product used by diabetics; a wood pulp product; and molasses, which could be used as a feed supplement for cattle.
He said the wood pulp product could be metabolised with another enzyme to make ethanol, a petrol substitute.
DAVID UNWIN/Stuff
Wood chips will go into the pressure cooker, which will be broken down to create other products.
“Where I believe that’s going to go, another technology will take the ethanol we might produce and turn it into sustainable air fuel.
“That’s probably the most difficult challenge in climate change, what do we do with long-haul air travel.”
Accessing hard woods in New Zealand for the process’ feed stocks was a challenge, but GreenChem had sources around the country.
Snowdon said they were looking for Government money for the next stage where they could operate more pressure cookers. They would likely be at the Marton site for two years as they tested feed stocks.
He said creating alternatives for single-use plastics could reduce the effects of climate change, as well as reducing landfill and rubbish going in the oceans.
It would make a difference for generations to come, he said.
“I’m very aware of other technologies that take wood and make biofuel, but it’s our estimate that we’re the only one that’s looking at multiple products and therefore is much more commercially viable.
“Especially when you go from biofuels, biomaterials, food, if one of those markets falls away the others sustain.”
DAVID UNWIN/Stuff
People inspect the new pressure cooker machine.
GreenChem sees itself as operating behind the scenes, providing ingredients for companies such as Plentyful, which will create sustainable plastic products and will soon have a facility in Marton next to GreenChem.
Plentyful’s technology converts organic waste such as food, dairy, viticulture and forestry waste into a compostable, environmentally friendly biopolymer, which can replace oil-based plastics.
Rangitīkei mayor Andy Watson said he went to Taiwan with a group seven years ago to look at a similar technology to what GreenChem was using, that could “not only change New Zealand, but change the world” in a move from single-use plastics to biodegradable products.
He said it was one of the reasons he went another term as mayor because he could see it coming to a stage where it could be commercialised.
Snowdon said the support of Callaghan Innovation had been important to their progress.
