A series of prototype decorticating machines have been built to prove concepts and develop the technology to the point of commercialisation, and TCI is now actively marketing the capabilities of its revolutionary D8 decorticating machine to farmers and agricultural cooperatives and organisations all around the world.
The D8 Static Decorticator machine is now ready to be manufactured to order, by contracted engineers in Australia, New Zealand, and Hungary for use in respective markets.
TCI’s unique and revolutionary process decorticates hemp stems and other bast crops while green or from dry sheaves, without the need for costly, damaging and time- consuming ‘retting’.
‘Retting’ is a word derived from the Dutch word that means ‘rotting’; until now, the process for separating fibre from the core has been via a rotting process of the crop that badly damages the crop and reduces the available fibre and hurd for commercial use by up to 80%.
This is why hemp fibre has been so expensive compared to cotton and synthetic fibres, and why most hemp fibre has lost its natural strength, thereby restricting its use in composite materials.
The technology has been tested and proven and shows that the TCI method and technology extracts the fibre from the hemp plants in a fraction of the time taken by other methods.
The method produces a much higher quality and larger quantity of fibre and that fibre is a much more valuable hemp fibre than traditional methods can produce. The hurd (‘core’) produced is also of a higher quantity and quality, and therefore also more valuable.
