Wool protein powder may revolutionise industry

By PHILIPPA STEVENSON agricultural editor

Woolgrowers struggling for profitability within the textile industry could be on the threshold of an entirely new industry courtesy of a research organisation singlemindedly dedicated to their product.

Wool Research Organisation managing director Garth Carnaby dangled the carrot of a new, high-paying, wool-based industry before farmers contemplating grabbing the Wool Board's $116 million of reserves and slashing levy funds at the board's recent annual meeting.

The industry stalwart who, in this year's Wronz annual report, confessed to profound frustration at having to abandon "so many of our dreams" because of industry fragmentation, warned growers at the meeting that starving their proposed new company, StrongWools NZ, of funds would stymie promising opportunities.

Assessing the just-released results of the meeting's vote on remits related to research, Dr Carnaby's renowned optimism had returned two weeks later.

Several of the 48 remits that growers endorsed supported retention of the reserves, and one favoured assessing the levy level on the basis of technology requirements.

Dr Carnaby said the remits showed "a surprising strong mandate for not returning the reserves but using them more constructively."

He had taken heart after detecting a mood among growers not to destroy the industry's research and development capability. He believed the board now had a mandate to do a "bottom-up assessment" of research needs before going back to farmers with a recommendation for a reasonable levy level.

"That's the direction the board is heading, and it is looking to me to help them with some of the content - where the needs are."

A top priority will be Wronz's Keratec project, whose longterm research is now being translated into a Christchurch pilot factory set to begin operation early next year.

The process dissolves wool, turning it into a water-soluble protein powder. Dr Carnaby says a number of international firms are "exceedingly" keen to manufacture this into a range of new consumer products - from cosmetics for skin, hair and fingernails to a tough but flexible paint-like film, food binders, and even fibre - but one so fine it would look more like silk than wool.

It had taken around four years to get the chemistry right. "You can dissolve wool but you end up with rubbish. To dissolve it and keep all the valuable proteins is the hard bit."

There are thousands of proteins in wool which can be grouped for their uses into a small number of broad types. The keratin protein is the same one humans have in skin, hair and fingernails, "so we have a material that is ideally suited for product development in the high-value, personal grooming areas," he said.

But just how many different products will come out of the factory as raw material for new industries is still not determined, and Wronz is keeping quiet about the sensitive information while it talks to potential customers.

However, in last year's annual report, Dr Carnaby forecast that in 2010 around 10 per cent of New Zealand's 194,000-tonne annual wool clip could be manufactured into new keratin products.

He told the recent board meeting that the technology could create a whole new industry and "in 10 years' time your sheep might be producing the raw material for some of the world's most luxurious, new economy products - and the carpetmakers may only be able to afford it if they, too, are manufacturing luxury products for the very rich."

The process produces a similar volume of protein to the amount of wool used.

"We are certainly planning on a factory capability of industrial scale," Dr Carnaby said.

"We can already make a bucketful - a few hundred kilograms - without any trouble."

He could not say when new products would emerge. "It's no longer a pipe dream, we are doing it. It's just getting outside the square with this wool industry. It is so locked in old bitter and twisted argument. We need something new."