As part of the "Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Project" (TABIP), which is carried out to strengthen the local economy and agriculture, the opening ceremony of the "Supercritical Extraction Facility for Medicinal Aromatic Plant Processing", where plant extracts and oil will be extracted, was held at the TÜBİTAK Marmara Research Center (MAM).
THE FIRST FACILITY WITH 100% DOMESTIC ENERGY and THE HIGHEST CAPACITY
The first facility with the largest capacity, which costs 8 million TL and uses 100% domestic energy, is located in the TÜBİTAK MAM Campus on an area of 332 square meters. With a capacity of processing 700-800 kg dry plant daily, the facility is expected to process around 250 tons of dry plant yearly. Apart from being the largest and the most efficient facility of Turkey, which was built with zero foreign dependency, it has the infrastructure and capacity to process 2,500 tons of products yearly.
At the facility, which will process domestic products in the first place, it is planned to process high value-added products obtained from both nature and market in the future. The seeds of products such as apricot, tomato, pomegranate, grape, etc. can also be processed with the technological infrastructure of the facility.
With the project to be developed by TÜBİTAK MAM and Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality, it is planned to create a data archive on the processing of Turkey’s endemic plants.
A GREAT INTEREST IN THE OPENING
The opening ceremony of the facility, which is expected to increase the added-value of agricultural products, was attended by Metropolitan Kocaeli Mayor Assoc. Prof. Tahir BÜYÜKAKIN, TÜBİTAK MAM President Dr. Osman OKUR, Deputy Mayor Mr. Yaşar ÇAKMAK, Secretary General Mr. Balamir GÜNDOĞDU, Deputy Secretary General Dr. Hasan AYDINLIK, Gebze Mayor Mr. Zinnur BÜYÜKGÖZ, Darıca Mayor Mr. Muzaffer BIYIK, Provincial Health Director Dr. Yüksel PEHLEVAN, KOTO Vice President Mr. Hüseyin GEZER, Prof. Ebubekir YÜKSEL, Chemical Engineer Msc. Müslüm YILDIZ, Assoc. Prof. Ercan GÜRBULAK and ARŞAN Machinery General Manager Mr. Selçuk Fatih ŞENTÜRK.
After the opening remarks of the Metropolitan Kocaeli Mayor Assoc. Prof. Tahir BÜYÜKAKIN and TÜBİTAK MAM President Dr. Osman OKUR, the delegation toured the facility and got detailed information from the officials.