OUTPUT OF LANOLIN

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30953, 8 January 1966, Page 17

OUTPUT OF LANOLIN

Yield Could Be Higher

The present national output of lanolin could be quadrupled if some New Zealand scouring plants modified their techniques and others put in extraction equipment.

This is the opinion of Dr. C. A. Anderson, a senior research scientist with C.5.1.R.0. division of textile industry at Geelong, Victoria. Dr. Anderson has recently spent five weeks in New Zealand. He inspected 19 scouring plants and attended the annual conference of the Wool Industries Research Institute at Dunedin.

His visit was arranged by the Wool Board at the request of the New Zealand Woolscourers’ Association. Dr. Anderson said woolscouring plants in this country were economically run, their work efficient and the industry as a whole more progressive than in many other countries. But undesirable practices had crept in which tended to increase entanglement of the wool and which also gave a low lanolin yield. He said lanolin extraction could significantly reduce scouring costs and at the same time help the problem of entanglement. Dr. Anderson said he had learnt that the problems of scouring in New Zealand were not the same as in Australia. Although it was easier to remove the grease from New Zealand wool than from Australian Merino, it was much harder to remove the dirt.