Innovation Anthology #206:

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Now that Wade Chute and his colleagues at the Alberta Research Council have patented a new process to remove silica from wheat straw, his team faces the next classic challenge – how to move innovative technology from the lab bench into the market place.

Chute’s pilot mill can produce 9 tonnes a day of desilicated straw, but it can only cook 5 kilograms of pulp at a time.

WADE CHUTE: What we need is, we need somebody to build a bigger one of what we’ve got is basically what it is. In the case of wheat straw, and if we’re looking building a satellite mill alongside an existing pulp mill, you know, call it just a non-wood pulping line, it’s a capital investment of up to and possibly even exceeding 200 million dollars. 200 million dollars is a lot of money right now for the industry. And there’s a lot of risk that is associated with that obviously. So they need to answer some questions in terms of how it is going to impact their existing process. They are going to need to know that the markets are there for them at a certain price.

The pulp made from wheat straw is similar to that made from hardwoods like aspen. And Wade Chute believes industry will find the markets for it once enough wheat straw pulp is commercially available.

Thanks today to the Alberta Research Council.

I’M CHERYL CROUCHER

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Alberta Research Council

Established as the first provincial research organization in Canada, the Alberta Research Council is 85 years old. The Alberta Research Council (ARC) develops and commercializes technologies to give customers a competitive advantage. A leader in innovation, ARC provides solutions globally to the energy, life sciences, agriculture, environment, forestry and manufacturing sectors.
ARC performs about five per cent of the roughly $1.5 billion in R&D done in Alberta each year, and generates revenues of approximately $84 million per year. ARC operates from five sites across the province in Edmonton, Calgary, Vegreville and Devon and employs more than 600 highly-skilled people.

In January 2010, under the new Alberta Innovation Framework, the Alberta Research Council was restructured and incorporated into the new provincial agency Alberta Innovates Technology Futures.

Program Date: 2009-02-26