QUT Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret Sheil AO, Minister for Agricultural Industry Development and Fisheries Mark Furner and Lava Blue managing director Michael McCann welcomed the construction phase of the new research facility at DAF’s Redlands research site.

“Reaching this milestone in the partnership between QUT, Lava Blue and the Innovative Manufacturing CRC (IMCRC) shows the importance of connecting research and industry to produce real-world impact,” Professor Sheil said.

“One of the things that QUT has always done is taken our research further along the translation pathways than universities traditionally do.

“It’s very important at QUT that our research gets to where it’s needed, whether it’s the research-driven project of creating virus-filtering masks from material made from sugar cane waste, or whether it’s the development of pilot plants for future resources such as high-purity alumina (HPA) – the benefit around research commercialization is actually ensuring that it reaches the end user.”