Terre et Faune - The Comoros

Contract: 2017.03
Resource Efficiency

Replacing Wood with Waste for Distilling Ylang Ylang

© Association Terre et Faune

© Association Terre et Faune

Swiss Contribution

The “Terre et Faune Association” (Land and Wildlife Association) is the project’s initiator and supporter. This association has been active in the Comoros for more than 15 years and works in close collaboration with Ulanga, the Comorian Association for Nature Protection. The HEIG-VD (School of Engineering of the Canton of Vaud) is responsible for the realization of furnace testing, its on-site installation, as well as training for its users.

Currently, the Comoros Islands are affected by deforestation (up to 8% per year) because local wood is used to operate the hundreds of ylang ylang distilleries that are located on the islands. It takes a ton of wood to produce 3 kg of this essential oil. Moreover, since there is no plastic waste management, plastic is burned in the open air. The project’s objective is to help solve these two serious environmental problems by replacing existing distiller furnaces with furnaces that can burn certain fractions of pre-sorted waste. Yverdon’s School of Engineering has developed a furnace coupled with a heat exchanger. A first assembly shall be made in Switzerland to validate the heat transfer performance necessary for distillation and then it shall be transferred to the Comoros with a follow-up for the operation’s start-up and optimization. In parallel to this project, the “Terre et Faune Association” has already built a recycling center in Moroni, the capital city of the Comoros.