Pulp and paper group Sappi was preparing to explore and optimise the extraction of biorenewable chemicals after signing an agreement with global supplier Valmet to build a second-generation sugar extraction demonstration plant at the Ngodwana mill.
The industrial size plant, which would come online in 2017, would extract hemicellulose sugars and lignin from Sappi’s existing dissolving pulp line, while improving the dissolving wood pulp manufacturing process.
“The demonstration plant will make it possible to study the next-generation dissolving pulping process and test new ideas at mill scale,” Sappi group head of technology Andrea Rossi said, reiterating the company’s accelerated ambitions of pursuing new adjacent business fields based on renewable raw materials.
Sappi aimed to demonstrate increased production output, higher dissolving pulp quality, lower operating costs and a new optimised hydrolysate revenue stream, besides others.
“The products from the demonstration plant will assist in the development of various beneficiation options for the different dissolving wood pulp lines operated by Sappi,” Rossi explained.
Sappi Biotech division leader Louis Kruyshaar added that new revenue opportunities emerged in the possibilities of extracting biobased materials from the cooking plant prehydrolysate stream for beneficiation to higher-value biochemicals.
The products under development would expand Sappi’s renewable biomaterials offering, which included nanocellulose, biocomposites and lignosulphonate.