BOILERS, PUMPS & VALVES
REDUCING ENERGY CONSUMPTION IN
THE PAPER INDUSTRY
The rise of e-commerce is driving a growth in the production of packaging, paper and paperboard. While huge amounts of energy are used during paper production, products like heat pumps are an excellent solution for reducing heat waste, as Tom Cash, director of Foxmere, explains
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n 2023, global retail e-commerce sales reached an estimated USD 5.8 trillion, with this expected to grow by a further 56% in the years to come. This is driving up the need for paper and cardboard packaging. Added to that, demand for personal hygiene products like tissues, toilet paper and wipes is also increasing. The pulp and paper industry is therefore thriving.
In Europe alone, this industry uses approximately 1,200 paper machines, each of which produces an average of 80,000 tonnes of paper a year. Unfortunately, however, the biproduct of this high- volume production is high-volume waste. In fact, producing just one piece of A4 paper requires ten litres of water, as reported by The World Counts. The paper manufacturing process involves several crucial stages, including pulping, refining, forming, pressing, drying and finishing. The pulping step, in particular, requires large volumes of water for fibre separation, transportation and dilution of chemicals. Here, wood fibres are soaked in water to break them down into a pulp, which is then used to produce the paper. The pulp is then poured onto a wire mesh screen to drain water away, in a process called forming. This step transforms the pulp into a continuous sheet of paper on a paper machine, where the remaining fibres form a wet mat that is pressed to remove even more water. These two steps alone help to visualise how much water is used during the production
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process – and that’s why efficient technologies, like closed-loop water systems, are essential for minimising water usage in paper manufacturing. In a closed-loop water system, sensors
continuously monitor water quality as it flows through various stages of the papermaking process. Based on sensor data, control systems then adjust treatment processes, like filtration and purification, ensuring optimal water quality for reuse. Robotics may also be employed for tasks such as equipment maintenance to enhance system efficiency and sustainability.
REDUCING HEAT WASTE Paper manufacturing requires extensive heat due to the large amounts of water that need to be evaporated during the drying process. According to IEA, drying accounts for 70% of the energy use in this sector. Heat pumps are an excellent solution for reducing heat waste. They transfer heat from one place to another using a refrigerant. In paper manufacturing, they can reuse latent heat from the drying process to produce steam for further drying. In fact, heat pumps are so effective that the European Heat-Pump Association (EHPA)
Tom Cash ENERGY & SUSTAINABILITY SOLUTIONS - Summer 2024
and the Confederation of the European Paper Industries (Cepi) have teamed up to lay the groundwork for heat pumps to be integrated into Europe’s paper mills. This comes as a joint EHPA-Cepi working group
calculated the potential energy savings and estimated that heat pumps can lead to a reduction in energy demand for drying by 50%, as well as potentially reducing emissions via fuel substitution. Furthermore, it is also believed that 65% of process heat in the European paper industry can be supplied by heat pumps that make use of the waste heat sources inside production processes.
REDUCING ENERGY CONSUMPTION According to Deskera, automation can reduce energy consumption in the paper industry by up to 20%. Be it sensors to monitor water flow rate, temperature, pressure and quality in closed-loop systems or programmable logic controllers (PLCs) to manage the operation of heat pumps, manufacturers must lean on a parts supplier they can trust.
Foxmere T: 01922 349 999
https://foxmere.com/en
www.essmag.co.uk
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