Grass-roots ‘building block’ produces sustainable materials

At the Dugalunji community on the traditional country of the Indjalandji-Dhidhanu people, just outside the tiny outback township of Camooweal, 190km drive north-west of Mount Isa in Queensland, stands a new solar-powered harvest facility. It has a laboratory equipped with a mass spectrometer, supercritical CO₂ extraction plant, state-of-the-art ceramic ball mill, high-pressure homogeniser, 80 staff and many tonnes of crop.

The crop is spinifex, a hardy perennial tussock grass found across more than two-thirds of Australia’s vast inland desert, which could potentially transform the production of materials such as latex rubber, many plastics and carbon fibres.

“Spinifex grass is sacred to Indigenous people, but it is also a useful material with a lot of different purposes,” says Colin Saltmere, an elder among the Indjalandji-Dhidhanu traditional owners of the region around Camooweal and the upper Georgina River and an adjunct associate professor of architecture at The University of Queensland, Brisbane.

“Our people used spinifex for thousands of years, weaving it for shelters and to carry things, and using its wax and oils to attach spear-heads and so on, and even for treating wounds,” says Saltmere.

In 2007, anthropologists, architects, bioengineers, from the university — including the director of the Aboriginal Environments Research Centre, Paul Memmott — met with representatives of the Indjalandji-Dhidhanu people in a research exercise to investigate harvesting practices and the science of spinifex.

Darren Martin, a professor of chemical engineering and Nasim Amiralian, a senior research fellow, at the university’s Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN), found that the spinifex contained remarkable nanofibers. This work was part of a five-year grant from the Australian Research Council to investigate the plant’s properties and was undertaken in collaboration with the Indjalandji-Dhidhanu partners.

The Indjalandji-Dhidhanu people own the Myuma Group of companies and signed a collaborative research agreement with the AIBN in 2014.

The two parties agreed to develop spinifex nanotechnology with wide-ranging industrial uses including packaging, biomedicine, latex production, carbon fibres and even road materials.

“This fascinating grass survives in temperatures up to 60°C and puts down roots 30 metres below ground to find water,” says Alan Rowan, professor of chemistry and the director of the AIBN.

The grass produces a resin which can form a very strong bond when used as glue and which, once melted and solidified again, forms a polymer that resembles Bakelite, Rowan says.

Under a microscope, strands of spinifex reveal stretchy cellulose fibres just a few nanometres thick but thousands of nanometres long, and with a tensile strength eight times greater than steel.

Researchers at AIBN have trialled these spinifex nanofibres to improve materials including latex, to create membranous products such as gloves that are around 30% thinner than products currently on the market, but just as strong.

Rowan says that there is global interest in developing nanocellulose materials from wood and other fibres, and spinifex has evolved unique properties in the harsh Australian desert that makes it a great source of these.

“The fine fibres at a nanoscale make this plant remarkable – and because it is so fine, we can make a fully renewable gel that is 98% water, and on a scale where we can sustainably generate hundreds of thousands of tonnes of material.”

The Myuma Group was critical in the reforms of Queensland’s Biodiscovery Act which passed in 2020.

Now, First Nations peoples’ traditional knowledge can only be used via agreement with the knowledge custodians, as required under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

“This is a success story between scientists who were intrigued about how this plant worked, and the indigenous community, whom they then went on a journey of discovery with,” says Rowan.

The result is a globally marketable crop which can be farmed in remote Australia, create new industries and provide secure and ongoing employment, adds Saltmere.

“For thousands of years, spinifex was a building block for the Aboriginal societies in the desert; now it will continue to play a role in advancing local Aboriginal communities through business and employment opportunities,” he says.