Panda Biotech’s modern industrial hemp processing facility will play a key role in meeting a significant portion of global demand for renewable processes and products such as textile-grade fiber, hurd, short-fiber/hurd mix, and nutrient-rich micronized hurd
Panda Biotech™ announced the official commencement of commercial operations at Panda Hemp Gin, its flagship industrial hemp processing facility in Wichita Falls, Texas. Panda industrial hemp striving to play a key role in meeting a significant portion of global demand for renewable processes and products.
The 500,000-square-foot building on 97 acres is the first facility of its kind and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. It can process 10 metric tons of industrial hemp per hour to produce textile fibers, hemp shives, a mixture of short fiber shives and a nutrient-rich by-product for pelleting. The process is completely waste-free, using every part of the industrial hemp stalk, and powered only by energy derived entirely from renewable sources, making it a sustainability benchmark for the industry.
The Panda Hemp Gin plant is fully operational and production rates are expected to increase in the coming months. In February, the complex process of commissioning a 600-yard processing line and three miles of pneumatic ground lines, including each decortication, refining, mixing, mechanical cotonization, shive packing and storage, and baling installation, was successfully completed.
Industrial hemp is considered one of the most universal raw materials, and the variety of its uses is unparalleled. At the Panda Hemp Gin plant, the focus will be on five product lines made from hemp: mechanically cotonized fibers, decorticated fibers, shive (cellulose), short fiber shive mixtures and nutrient-rich hemp dust. The countless applications for each of these products are very diverse: consumer and industrial fabrics, non-woven fibers, paper products, bio-based plastics, biofuels, animal bedding, fiberglass substitutes, building materials such as hempcrete, mulch, insulation and much more.
Industrial hemp brings a number of benefits to producers, as scientific research shows that the crop reduces CO2 emissions, sequestering more of the gas per acre than any forest or other commercial crop. In addition, hemp uses much less water than most crops, making it exceptionally cleansing the soil, and requiring the use of minimal amounts of fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides.
