UTAS research shortlisted at prestigious Tasmanian awards
The commercial potential of two UTAS research projects has been recognised
Teams from the Australian Maritime College (AMC) and from the Australian Centre for Research on Separation Science (ACROSS) have been acknowledged for their entrepreneurial research at the recent Tasmanian C-Star awards.
‘Team Bycatch’ and ‘CE-Scan’ were finalists in the State Government’s C-Star awards for the commercialisation of science, technology and research.
The small group of AMC staff dubbed ‘Team Bycatch’ were shortlisted for pooling their combined knowledge to develop a novel technology that reduces bycatch in prawn trawl fisheries. ‘Team By-catch’ is an interdisciplinary group of fishing gear technology experts from, engineering and marine biology and ecology. Team member David Maynard said for every kilogram of prawns consumed, between three and 20 kilograms of non target animals are captured and discarded.
“This is a waste of natural resources and also represents inefficiency in the fishing process – fishermen paying to catch and then discard substantial volumes of fish,” David said. “There are a number of devices available to prawn trawl fishermen that reduce small fish bycatch, but they are not overly effective and they are known to cause around five percent prawn loss, which is an inefficiency in the fishing method”
“Our device works totally differently. It catches five percent more prawns so that’s a 10 percent improvement in catch rate. It also reduces small fish bycatch by about 20 percent.”
The ACROSS CE-Scan research project (funded by a grant from Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet awarded to Greg Dicinoski, Paul Haddad, Cameron Johns, Joseph Hutchinson, Emily Hilder, Michael Breadmore, Rosanne Guijt, Pavel Nesterenko) were shortlisted for their separation science work. This research focuses on a portable device for analysing post-blast samples of improvised explosives, such as those often used by terrorists, allowing the chemical identity of the explosive to be rapidly determined.
This instrument allows a very broad range of explosives, from commercial high explosive such as TNT and Semtex, to improvised fertiliser based explosives, to be identified from a single sample on a single instrument.
This instrument is designed to be transported to the location of the terrorist attack or clandestine laboratory for on-site analysis. The rapid provision of results at the crime scene will provide investigators with the necessary information to track down the perpetrators responsible.
Dr Robin Fieldhouse, Manager of Innovation and Commercial Development for UniQuest Pty Ltd at the University of Tasmania, says he was pleased that two UTAS projects were selected as finalists in the 2010 C-Star awards.
“It was an honour to be a part of these awards, as they focus on the commercialisation aspects of research, such as how the Intellectual Property value is protected and how a prototype is developed,” Robin said.
UniQuest has helped the ‘Team Bycatch’ researchers apply for a patent for a device that exploits fish responses to light. UniQuest is also actively seeking investment from the private sector to get the product on to the world market.
“Globally, there are around 20,000 prawn trawlers. Independent market research calculates the global market for our product to be about $500 Million,” Robin said. “It is really exciting that tools that will impact on global fisheries are being developed here in Tasmania."
For David Maynard the benefits are multi-faceted. “These changes will benefit the industry and the environment. This interdisciplinary work shows the strength of AMC as an industry relevant research body that understands the needs of industry and the environment,” he said.
The CE-Scan technology also has a number of competitive advantages over current methods for detecting explosives. Its portability, sensitivity, and ability to detect a wider range of devices simultaneously are likely to attract interest from industry partners in the global explosives detection market, which is worth more than $210 million.
“Both of these research innovations offer potentially significant economic benefits for Tasmania and the University as well as the industries they will help. Recognition of this from the state government is very encouraging for the research and commercialisation teams involved,” Robin said.
Image caption:
Troy Gaston, Nigel Blundell, David Maynard, Greg Dicinoski and Robin Fieldhouse at the C-Star Awards.