Research
Vircura will support the development of new products, provide for significant R&D investment and bring like-minded partners, manufacturers, research institutions and universities together.
The Monarto Innovation Precinct will provide a facility for undergraduate and postgraduate students to gain real life industry experience through applied training and education opportunities with programs targeting high-tech indoor horticulture and sustainable systems. The overarching aim of this project is to apply innovative research methods to enable an economically viable, carbon-neutral and cohesive industrial ecosystem to produce new building materials, energy and feedstocks based on novel crops.
The precinct will be a functional blueprint that can be replicated at other sites nationally and internationally, at scale and with flexibility. It will train the next generation of researchers and entrepreneurs, establishing seamless integration between industry and academia.
Specific Project Aims
- Create a ground-breaking zero waste, carbon-neutral industrial ecosystem based on novel plant biomasses;
- Design new sustainable and economic construction materials in a range of formats using plant fibres;
- Formulate safe, organic and carbon-neutral binders for construction products;
- Develop and implement a protocol for materials testing compliant with Australian Building Standards;
- Maximise multi-use applications of plant biomass into materials, energy production and value-added feedstocks;
- Use feedback from design processes to inform plant breeding and selection for future fit-for-purpose cultivars;
- Train the next generation of researchers with an innate understanding of industry needs and drivers – and vice versa;
- Communicate research and innovation to industry, schoolchildren and the public through outreach and education activities.
Innovative research efforts will remove blockages preventing broader scale manufacture and adoption of new types of building materials that are sustainable, healthier, safer and meet Australian building standards, with downstream economic (monetary), environmental (reduced GHG emissions) and social (human health) value.
The pressure to find net-zero and carbon-negative solutions demands a shift in thinking and presents a huge opportunity to reinvent how we use resources and combine industries and processes synergistically, including physical proximity and vertical integration, to reduce overall emissions.
