Botnia's Joutseno Mill to Install Gasification Plant

Metsä-Botnia's Joutseno mill, Finland, has selected Andritz, Graz, Austria, to supply a 48 MW gasification plant that will generate green fuel gas from local biomass, thus making the mill independent of fossil fuels. After completion, scheduled for September 2012, the mill will solely use renewable fuels as energy sources and fully replace all fossil fuels in the mill's lime kiln during normal operations. Andritz's scope of supply includes engineering, equipment, erection, startup, and optimization of the entire gasification process.

The gasification plant will employ Andritz's circulating fluidized bed (CFB) technology. Upon startup of the plant, energy generation at the Joutseno mill will become carbon dioxide neutral during its standard production. The fuel handling system includes an innovative dryer that utilizes the mill's excess heat for bark drying. The gas produced is finally burned in the lime kiln with a burner developed by Andritz.

Known as Botnia, Metsä-Botnia was founded in 1973 and is a global supplier of market pulp. The company operates four mills in Finland: Joutseno, Kemi, Rauma, and Äänekoski. The Joutseno mill specializes in pulp for wood-fiber printing papers and for high-quality coated printing and specialty papers. It has a production capacity is 650,000 metric tpy and has 160 employees. Nearly half of the energy content of wood used by the mill is eventually extracted as biofuel.

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