Development of sustainable tannin extraction strategy in the Philippines

In the Philippines, about 25 million people live in the uplands, mostly depending from the forest for their livelihood and customary lifestyles. Their incomes from conventional timber and crops trading are however limited. The valorisation of disregarded biomasses like bark, twigs, roots, shells and fruit husks as sources of condensed tannins is an attractive option for the improvement of the community livelihoods.

Tannins are polyphenolic compounds that can be hot-water extracted from many plant tissues. They are interesting because they have been successfully used in the formulation of natural adhesives in wood-based products and might constitute an alternative to formaldehyde-based adhesives. The previous r4d project “Cocoboards” showed the efficacy of tannins as binders for fibreboards made of coconut husk.

Furthermore, plant extracts rich in tannins showed also biocide characteristics that suggested their possible use as wood preservatives alternatives to toxic synthetic products. Even if many researches have been conducted at the academic level, only few efforts have been documented for the implementation of a tannin extraction value chain in Southeast Asia. Currently, all the tannins used in the Philippines are imported from South Africa.

In the long-term, the project outcomes are envisaged to contribute to the sustainable land use and afforestation and the creation of new job opportunities among local communities.

Ziele

The Pinoy Tannin project aims to develop the scientific, technological, social and economic bases to set up a sustainable and environmentally-friendly tannin extraction in the Philippines, and to contribute to the creation of new revenue possibilities for local communities.

To reach this goal, the project intends to:

• Enable local communities to produce tannins through a new extraction technology and related agroforestry practices for the supply of tannin rich biomasses.
• Develop strategies to establish and promote a tannin value chain for the benefits of stakeholders

Assist and conduct a policy dialogue to integrate this new value chain and disseminate the scientific results in the scientific community

Vorgehen

The project is divided into six working packages:

1. Identification of suitable tannin sources in the Philippines
2. Development of a cost-efficient extraction process
3. Upscaling of the extraction process and industrial size tests
4. Development of the biomass supply chain
5. Simulation of the tannin value chain
6. Result dissemination

Lösung

Preliminary results:

• Several barks from local trees and by-products of the coconut farming have been identified as potential tannin sources in the Philippines
• The identified biomasses were extracted in the laboratory scale and the extracts have been analysed for the tannin content and the toxicity against fungi and insects
• A low-end pilot-scale tannin extraction system close to the reality in the local communities has been developed
• A policy dialog is ongoing with the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), which expressed interest to support and disseminate the project results

A newsletter was setup for the communication of the project results among the scientific, industrial and policy project stakeholders