The Australian sugar industry leads the world in terms of productivity per hectare, but despite this advantage, it continues to struggle with profitability. Margins are under constant pressure, and it appears that continuing to direct most future efforts to on-farm, logistics and milling productivity improvements will deliver only incremental gains to what is an already efficient production system.
Fortunately, the industry also finds itself now approaching a period of opportunity emerging through the increasing global momentum of the bio-based economy. This represents an opportunity to break away from the current dependence on the global sugar price, a commodity whose production is subsidised and/or protected in many countries and whose consumption has plateaued or dropped in many markets. In the current context, the sugarcane industry is extraordinarily well-placed to become a significant contributor in this emerging bio-based economy. New opportunities for diversification and value-adding exist throughout the supply chain, including new options for feedstock production, biomass processing, and both intermediate and end-product manufacture.
Following an on-going market and technology watch exercise, hydrogen was identified as a potentially attractive diversification opportunity for the sugar industry. The PhD candidate will carry out experiments on the production of hydrogen from sugarcane bagasse using USQ in-house gasification unit.

Dr Antoine Trzcinski

• Assoc Prof Guangnan Chen

• National Centre for Engineering in Agriculture
• School of Engineering and Built Environment

• Chemical Engineering
• Environmental Engineering

• Doctor of Philosophy (DPHD)
• Doctor of Philosophy (DPHD)