The Deakin BioFactory

Transforming Victoria's waste industry

The Deakin BioFactory is part of the Circular Economy Accelerator - Organics (CEA-O) cooperative, a collaboration with Monash University, RMIT University and 20 industry partners, that aims to provide industry, councils and other partners with a one stop shop for technology development for handling food waste, agricultural waste and marine by-products. The CEA-O will address how we can use these as input renewable materials to develop of a range of valuable products within a single biorefinery.

The $16.4 million project has been supported by a $10 million investment through the Victorian Government’s Higher Education State Investment Fund (VHESIF) to help create a Victorian circular economy powerhouse.

The role of Deakin's BioFactory

Deakin’s BioFactory will deliver an advanced biomanufacturing capability at Deakin’s Waurn Ponds campus in Geelong, linked to expanded facilities at RMIT for food, water, and biosolids processing, and connected to product, process quality and analysis capabilities at Monash University.

The BioFactory will focus on:

Reducing organic waste going to landfill.
Developing new approaches to transform and process organic waste.
Testing and innovating new processing techniques at a pilot manufacturing scale, enabling industry to de-risk future investments in biomanufacturing.
Transforming biomass and biosolid waste into valuable outputs including feeds, nutrition, fertilisers and biomaterials, contributing to a waste-minimising Circular Economy.
Creating new products and alternatives to petrochemical derived products.
Transforming under-utilised marine biomass into bioproduct.
Building long-term collaborative partnerships with the agriculture, food, water and other adjacent industries.

Driving Change

Waste is a now critical problem for all industries with accelerating recognition of the urgent need to redesign, repurpose and reuse products to create a sustainable existence and maximise the value of resources.

Deakin's BioFactory will deliver a cleaner, greener Victoria with less waste and pollution, better recycling and position Victoria as the innovation leader in the processing of organic waste.

Working with us

The BioFactory will provide a significant opportunity to:

Deliver a cleaner, greener Victoria with less waste and pollution, and better recycling.
Position Victoria as the innovation leader in the processing of organic waste
Create jobs – pave the way for growth in local manufacturing industry and the further scaling up of advanced manufacturing processes.
Future-proof Victoria’s industry and supply chains.

If you would like to learn more about the BioFactory, connect with our researchers or discuss partnership opportunities, we'd love to hear from you.