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Biotech firm Aromatrix wins first industrial contract

Talk about smelling out an opportunity. Local biotechnology firm Aromatrix, which cleans odorous air, has won its first industrial contract from a tannery company in Australia.

The contract, worth A$322,000 (S$392,300), was awarded to associate company Aromatrix Australia, which is one-third owned by Aromatrix.

 

Aromatrix Australia will design, fabricate and install an odour-control system, using its proprietary AroBIOS technology, for a facility in New South Wales belonging to Al Topper & Co.

 

Instead of using the conventional method of resorting to chemical to treat odour, AroBIOS passes the foul gas through filter inhabited by bacteria that absorb or consume the odorous elements.

 

The system will treat foul air of up to 100 parts per million of hydrogen sulphide gas, as well as other compounds, generated from leather-making processes like soaking, cleaning and treating the leather.

 

Aromatrix Australia will complete the system within the next seven to eight months, then conduct a once-off performance test, said the company’s chairman and inventor of the technology, Dr Lawrence Koe.

 

To-date, the AroBIOS technology has only been used to treat water in sewage treatment plants, which are municipal projects.

 

These include a contract to treat odorous water at the Singapore Kranji Water Reclamation Plant, a project worth close to S$2 million, as well as at the Coombabah Waterfuture project on Australia’s Gold Coast, a project worth nearby A$1 million, Dr Koe said.

 

He expects Aromatrix Australia, which is partly owned by Australian private investors, to win other municipal and industrial contracts Down Under.

 

Separately, Aromatrix has also won a number of municipal and industrial contracts in China and Hong Kong, and will provide further details when these are officially confirmed, he said.

 

In seeking industrial applications in Singapore, Aromatrix is “a little behind”, said Dr Koe.

 

“People are still tied to conventional chemical methods. Also, the first time installation of a biological system is expensive”, he said.

 

(Business Times, 4th January 2006)