The current climate crisis makes us aware of the need to be resilient to ensure self-sustainment of the global economy and supply chain, particularly our food supply chain.

To demonstrate this to the public, the School of Chemical Engineering and Advanced Materials and the School of Architecture and Built Environment at the University of Adelaide has a stand at the Royal Adelaide Show starting today.

On display is a model of a future distributed fertiliser manufacturing facility (‘at-farm’) using renewable materials (from air and water) and renewable energies.  This can transform a business, and the impact it has on the environment. The Clare Valley is taken as local example.

In direct contrast, the current fertiliser manufacturing process is demonstrated by a second landscape model based on the size of our state, which needs huge factories using fossil fuels and fossil materials in production and large infrastructure and energy for transportation (by ship, train, trucks). Both the manufacturing and the transport processes cause large carbon dioxide production and contribute to global warming.

The University of Adelaide develops technologies to enable this industrial transformation.  The technologies include low-temperature plasma processing which models the supply chain and sustainability, and we talk to SA farmers to refine the technology to their own business model.

If you are at the Show over the next week, pop in to the Stirling Angus Hall and have a chat to one of our staff.