On Thursday, Tyton BioEnergy Systems held a media event to show off their new technology for turning tobacco into chemicals and agricultural products. I think that I’ve learned enough about what is going on to try to explain it to you with some photos. We’re going to go way more in-depth than any other media source with this story. Let’s get started with the photo tour.
Tyton BioEnergy Systems is located at the Dan River Business Development Center. The DRBDC is a place that very few people know about, and that’s a topic for a future article. They’ve got office and industrial bay space for small businesses that are starting out.
Tyton’s general idea is to take their own special strain of tobacco and end up turning it into things like sugars and oils that can made into useful products. Let’s get started on the photo tour.
Tyton president and co-founder Peter Majeranowski starts the tour with the receiving area. Fresh tobacco plants have just been delivered.
This is a patented special strain of tobacco plant designed for Tyton’s process.
The tobacco isn’t cured and just chopped off at the stalk at harvest time.
It’s hard to see them behind the plants, but you’ve got two workers packing the plants down into the machine that will chop everything up.
River City TV’s Mark Aron is getting video footage while the workers process the incoming tobacco.
There’s no such thing as pulling tobacco leaves off the stalk here. Everything goes into the machine to be processed.
The blue tubs and buckets below the machine catch all of the natural juices that are still in the stalk and leaves.
This is what’s left of the stalks and that will be used in another part of the process.
After the machine shreds everything, the chopped-up leaves go into the machines inside the plant.
In Part #2, we’ll take a look at the machinery inside the building and talk more about the process. That’s coming up next on SouthsideCentral!
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