The Biorefineries for Profit project is developing technologies to convert crop and crop-processing residues into high value animal feed supplements and industrial chemicals. The project seeks to develop and demonstrate biorefinery technologies that add value to primary products, by-products, and wastes, reduce input costs for primary production, and identify and develop new markets for biorefinery products.

Phase 1 of the project, which concluded in 2019, demonstrated pilot-scale conversion of sugarcane bagasse into new value-added animal feed ingredients (including highly digestible fibre and prebiotic xylo-oligosaccharides), feed probiotics, and also the production of the chemical 5-chloromethylfurfural (CMF) from cotton gin trash.

This Phase 2 project is conducting a series of both chicken and weaned pig feeding trials with bagasse-derived functional fibre, prebiotic xylo-oligosaccharides and probiotic bacterial strains, alone and in combination, to demonstrate the safety, palatability and efficacy of these novel feed ingredients. It will also demonstrate scaled-up production of CMF from cotton gin trash.