Vikas Lifecare works with numerous institutions to manufacture cellulose, lignin, and silica from rice husk.

Vikas Lifecare Limited has announced its collaboration with three top-tier colleges to share research inputs and collaborate on generating a variety of commercially viable products from rice husk, including cellulose, lignin, and silica. The New Delhi-based company collaborated on this agro-circle initiative with Sweden’s Stockholm University and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-BHU)-Varanasi.

In addition, the business has worked with well-known Swedish businesses Lignflow Technologies AB and Lixea Computer for the same goal.
The major objective of the Agro-Circle Project, according to the business in a press release posted on exchanges, is to develop novel value chain concepts for the manufacture of circular materials from agro-industrial side-streams.

“This project will aim developing techniques to produce new bio-based materials from the natural polymers extracted from these farm waste materials,” it continued. “It will also aim avoiding pollution arising from burning of crop residues directly on the fields, which is the biggest cause of poor air quality in northern part of India in winter season.

Utilizing Lixea’s Dendritic Process, Sweden-based Lixea Compular seeks to develop a method for producing cellulose from agricultural rice leftovers.

“The objective of this collaboration is to develop a circular economy to achieve sustainability through production, recovery, reuse, and sending back the product to its original form at the end of life, resulting in zero or negligible waste,” said Dr. SK Dhawan, managing director of Vikas Lifecare, in a statement regarding the development.

The human population will surpass 9 billion in around 20 years, and there are currently 1.4 billion people living in India alone, he continued. The human race urgently needs to increase agricultural productivity as climate change continues to pose major challenges to communities all over the planet. There will be a rise in the production of agricultural byproducts like rice husks and straw, which are numerous, renewable, and sustainable.