Seven WA firms win R&D grants

The latest round of Federal R&D grants has gone to a diverse collection of Western Australian companies, including mining software specialists Micromine (see story, bottom). Mark Beyer reports.

Seven Western Australian companies in fields as diverse as mining software, aquaculture, farming and thermo-electric cooling have obtained $9.2 million of research funding from the Federal Government.

Federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane last week announced $65 million worth of R&D Start grants, which are matched dollar for dollar by the recipients.

Among the recipients in WA, the largest grant of $2.63 million was awarded to mining software company Micromine (see below).

Another recipient was little-known company Hydrocool.

The Fremantle-based business has spent a decade developing thermo-electric coolers, which refrigerate using semiconductor materials rather than mechanical devices.

Hydrocool’s technology has been licensed by Japanese company Matsushita since 1998 and has been used in 60,000 mini-bar fridges.

Its technology is also applicable to personal computers. Hydrocool has obtained a $1.94 million Start grant to help develop a more advanced thermo-electric cooling module.

Cockburn company Rojan Advanced Ceramics is a world-wide supplier of engineered ceramics to the mining, foundry and heavy clay industries, and for laboratories.

It has been awarded a $1.17 million grant for the development of advanced manufacturing systems for aluminium titanate, a product best known for its heat insulation and thermal shock resistance.

Cortec Systems, which is part-owned by listed company QPSX, has also obtained $1.17 million.

This is on top of $6 million of venture capital funding the company obtained early this year.

The funds will be used to support the continued development of its voice-over-Internet-protocol (VoIP) technology.

Two Rocks Abalone has been awarded $1.05 million to develop a model for sustainable abalone aquaculture, encompassing the life cycle from hatchery to grow-out stage.

Two Rocks is a subsidiary of Southseas Abalone, which manages an abalone farm in South Australia.

The company had initially planned to undertake its research at Two Rocks Marina, north of Perth, but concluded it would be more efficient to operate from the SA site.

Listed company Computronics has been awarded $945,000 to develop a continuous crop quality measuring system.

The system is designed particularly for the viticulture industry, and aims to help growers better manage the quality control of their grape harvest.

The final Western Australian recipient is Australian Olive Harvesters, which is developing mechanical ‘shaker’ harvesters for the fast growing olive industry.

It had two machines, capable of harvesting 60 trees an hour, in use this year, and after some fine tuning plans to launch the model in time for the 2005 harvest.

The Start grant will be used to develop a prototype of a larger, self-propelled dual-head model capable of harvesting 180 trees an hour.

Start grants

Micromine:  $2.63m

Hydrocool:  $1.94m

Rojan Advanced Ceramics:  $1.17m

Cortec Systems:  $1.17m

Two Rocks Abalone:  $1.05m

Computronics: $0.95m

Australian Olive Harvesters:  $0.29m