Aiming for Emission-Free Pulping: Forestry Industry and Scientific Community Join Forces
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The forest industry, technology companies, research organizations, and universities have joined forces to revolutionize the traditional pulping processes under the joint leadership of VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. The Emission-Free Pulping research program intends to find ways to improve energy efficiency, enhance the efficiency of wood usage and conversion to products, achieve emission-free pulping (especially carbon dioxide emissions), and significantly reduce water usage in the processes.
“Due to the limited nature of forest resources, the growth opportunities for the industry are constrained. Moreover, the burning of biomass in the pulping process results in the emission of biogenic CO2. To significantly enhance resource efficiency and increase the value added from wood, revising the chemical processes and unit operations used in the pulping process is essential,” says Atte Virtanen, Vice President of biomaterial processing and products at VTT.
So far, five industrial companies have committed to the program, and they will bring in their knowledge about industrial relevance and operations as well as financial contribution. Have committed to a five-year collaboration with ANDRITZ, Arauco, Metsä Group, Stora Enso, and Valmet the research organizations and universities for this program. The program has been granted substantial funding from Business Finland, amounting to over 5 million euros over a three-year period.
“Long-term research cooperation between companies, research organizations, and universities is essential for solving major sustainability challenges. With the financing of this joint project, we want to speed up the renewal of the forest industry, which is of paramount importance for Finland’s competitiveness,” says Executive Director Timo Metsä-Tokila from Business Finland.
“We are deeply committed to the vision of a thriving forest-based ecosystem that delivers the full value of Nordic wood. The key to achieving this lies in fostering innovation and coming together as an industry and as a research ecosystem. By combining our efforts, we can drive advancements that not only enhance efficiency but also uphold our commitment to environmental stewardship. It’s about creating a future where sustainable wood use and more resource-efficient pulping methods go hand in hand, ensuring the longevity and prosperity of our forests and the industries dependent on them,” says Katariina Kemppainen, SVP Group R&D at Metsä Group.
The expertise and knowledge being developed will be internationally groundbreaking, and the program’s sought-after results are expected to have wide-ranging effects.
“We celebrate that other companies and universities share our view on the necessity to use science and joint research for enabling significant improvement of the material yields from pulping and thereby reducing emissions. Can we reach zero? Let’s see what academia and industry develop together, based on science, knowledge, and inclusion of industrial realities from start to end in the program,” says Mikael Hannus, Senior Vice President, Group Innovation R&D at Stora Enso.
