Pulp Paper & Logistics
AALTO UNIVERSITY 13
he worked for a private company in Austria producing regenerated cellulose fibres. “At the university, our research
work focuses on improving kraft pulp mills and developing the properties of pulp. We also propose modifications to existing pulp mills to isolate other value- added products like hemicellulose and lignin from wood raw material to further develop the biorefinery concept.” According to Sixta, the forest industry infrastructure is ideal for biorefining as it has access to and knowledge of sourcing wood raw materials, and is capable of converting them into value-added products. “Personally, I think that investing in high-added-value biomaterials is the right way forward for the forest-based industry, because in the future it will be a business on a scale as large as the pulp and paper currently is.” However, the drawback is
that the industry does not have enough experience of creating alternative products from wood. “That process has to happen in
collaboration with the chemical industry, which is also very keen to replace crude oil and naphtha with renewables. They are not so interested in sourcing raw materials – they just want to have a certain quality of composition and then do the refining themselves,” Sixta believes. “This could be also a danger for
the pulp industry, because the major added value is created in
downstream processes rather than in the first production steps. The pulp industry understands this very well and is working hard to find individual solutions for better exploiting wood raw material.” He points out that different
companies have different targets: some invest more in biofuel production, while others go for biomaterials. “Both aspects are very important and successful when they are done step by step and with a high research input,” he notes. “In the long term, biofuels will
become an important business dominated by big energy companies, so it might be a bit hard for the forest industry to successfully compete in this field. However, there will be plenty of opportunities for biomaterials in areas like automotive, daily life and well-being products.”
International cooperation Professor Sixta hails the long tradition of mutual collaboration between industries and universities in Finland. “I think that industry understands well the need to invest in R&D. The big players are also encouraging scientists like us to focus on fundamental research work, because applied research doesn’t offer opportunities to get into new business areas. We need to have both.” “This is an ongoing process and an important aspect of the mutual collaboration between the research work and the pulp industry in general,” he adds. He also gives the international
research community credit for carrying out further bioeconomy R&D. “I believe that the pioneers in this field come from the US, because the funding situation is more coherent there.”
“In Europe, we are gathered in small units, and that makes developing breakthrough technologies more difficult here. However, the Nordic countries and the Netherlands in particular are pioneers in the biorefinery field, for example.” Emerging countries, especially China, India, Brazil and Chile,
are also actively developing biomaterials. “Researchers from different locations are very well connected with each other. Global business also means a global research network,” he concludes. ● This article was originally published in Valmet’s customer magazine Forward, issue 1/2015.
The next step: textiles from wood
Producing textile fibres could be one option for the pulp industry in the future, says Herbert Sixta. “It is a large-scale industry with a volume of 90 million tonnes a year – that approaches the volumes of paper production,” he says. Currently, researchers from Aalto University are working within the Finnish Bioeconomy Cluster to further develop the Ioncell-F process, an Aalto invention. Sixta describes the schedule of the development process: “Over
at least the next three years, we will be concentrating on the basic concepts of the process. In the very best case we could have an operational pilot plant in 2018. If the product quality and other variables correspond to the requirements, we could be able to begin commercializing the product in 2020 or 2022.” Textiles made using wood pulp as a raw material with the Ioncell-F
process combine the best properties of cotton and viscose textiles. The Aalto fibre process allows also the use of recycled textiles or even pretreated waste paper as a raw material for the production of high- quality textile fibres. “Fibres made with Ioncell-F have markedly better water management than cotton. Therefore, these fibres could be used in textiles for hygiene or sportswear products where the textile needs to absorb a lot of moisture. Since they are also relatively strong fibres compared to viscose and cotton, they could be used as reinforcing fibres in composites and technical textiles.”
September/October 2015
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