Sweet success for design to make bio-nylon from sugar cane waste

A team of Monash chemical engineering students have won the prestigious Pratt Prize for their design and economic analysis of a plant to convert sugar cane waste into nylon.

The Pratt Prize is awarded annually by the Joint Victorian Chemical Engineering Committee, composed of members of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and the Engineers Australia Chemical College, for the best design project by final year chemical engineering students.

The Monash team - Emily-Rose Maroun, Thomas Anderson, Brayden Haney, Huy Hoang, Jess Lam and Lachlan Stokkel - designed a plant to be located in Bundaberg, Queensland, where it would use waste from locally-grown sugar cane to produce bio-nylon.

Their economic analysis accompanying the design demonstrated that the plant could generate 49,000 tonnes of sustainable nylon per year, yielding an annual profit of A$30 million.

“Winning the Pratt Prize means so much to us,” said Emily-Rose Maroun on behalf of the team.

“It’s an acknowledgement of all the hard work and commitment we made not just through our final semester, but our whole degree.”

“The late nights, long meetings, and stressful deadlines were definitely worth it as we now have this award to share together, along with the many fun memories we created on the way.”

Accepting the prize, the team thanked their academic advisor Dr Leonie van ‘t Hag and unit coordinators Professors Nicoleta Maynard and Sankar Bhattacharya, and acknowledged academic support from lecturer John Westover and PhD candidate Bennet Thomas