According to a report released this week by Paper and Packaging International, Neucel Specialty Cellulose, Richmond, B.C., Canada, is making significant advancements and improvements in its facilities infrastructure. Located on Vancouver Island, B.C., Neucel ships approximately 70% of its dissolving pulp production to Asia, especially China. The company chips whole virgin western hemlock logs to maintain production quality. 

 

Approximately half of the company’s production at its Port Alice, B.C., mill on the northern end of Vancouver Island is custom formulations of specialty dissolving wood pulp. The production process provides highly refined, chemically accessible pulp fibers with few impurities and no remaining fibrous structure. Dissolving pulp is used in the manufacture of textile fibers, plastic-like materials, ethers, lacquers, and explosives.

 

The other half of production is viscose grade-dissolving pulp, which is sold on the commodity market. It is used extensively for rayon textiles in China, yarn, and filaments. In addition, Neucel produces acetate-grade dissolving pulp used in cigarette and oil filters, cellophane and industrial film. Nitrocellulose is used in lacquers, paints, fireworks, and explosives. The company’s dissolving pulp also can be found in everyday items such as ice cream, food casings, and cellphone LCD screens.

 

Neucel’s specialty cellulose pulp grades are produced in rolls or sheets that are 91% to 96% alpha cellulose. The brightness of the pulp, its intrinsic viscosity, and other features are tailored to meet customers’ specific requirements. Minimum orders of custom specialty cellulose are from 200 to 500 metric tons depending on the product. The plant is producing approximately 150,000 metric tpy of specialty cellulose and has the capacity to produce up to 195,000 metric tpy.

 

Neucel has its own woodyard operations that process logs into wood chips. "It’s a little more costly than other mills, but we feel we are better able to control final product quality through the chipping process and carefully selecting the type of wood that goes into our processes," explains Tai Cheng, VP of community and government affairs. 

 

The first mill in Port Alice began operation in 1918, but the one currently being used started production in 2005 after a shutdown by the company that previously owned it. "We’ve spent about $80 million recently on capital improvements to the mill," Cheng calculates. "One of the big issues we face is that it’s an old mill and it’s on an old site. There is a lot of machinery that needs to be maintained and updated. Maintenance is a major focus for us. We have a larger maintenance group dedicated to the mill than other mills to ensure that production is smooth and uninterrupted."

 

Neucel Specialty Cellulose’s processes require more processing steps and chemical treatments than a conventional pulp and paper operation. "We’re looking at upgrading the actual processing side and in different ways to use our chemicals and lower our chemical usage," Cheng continues. "We have a water and wastewater treatment plant that is 10 times larger than any other paper pulp mill."

 

Because of its remote location, energy is one of the biggest expenses for the Port Alice mill. Consequently, the company is considering several improvements to its operation. "We are looking at increasing boiler efficiency and upgrading our turbo generator, as well as our recovery boiler that we have at the mill site," Cheng says. "Our goal is to reduce our carbon footprint with a two-pronged approach of increasing the energy efficiency of current equipment and sourcing alternative greener fuels."

 

One of those alternative fuels could be natural gas, which Neucel would obtain in liquid form for a portion of its energy system because there are no pipelines in the area. "With proposed production of LNG on the west coast of British Columbia, there is an opportunity for it to be trucked or barged to our mill for storage and vaporization onsite," Cheng added.

 

Neucel also is examining the conversion of its recovery boiler for use with a larger range of fuel to improve the plant’s energy self-sufficiency. Waste from its wood-chipping plant (hog fuel) is being burned in a recovery boiler to reduce the mill’s use of oil. "What comes with the bundles of logs is a bunch of other fiber and vegetation that we can burn," Cheng says. The waste is processed and dried in the company’s woodpile and then burned in the boiler in replacement of oil. This also is diverting the wood waste from the landfill. 

 

To stabilize the hog fuel burn in the boiler, Neucel experimented one year ago with adding wood pellet fuel to it. "Now we’re one of the largest industrial pellet buyers in British Columbia," Cheng maintains. "We use approximately 40 tons of wood pellets a day depending on grade production and hog fuel mix. Wood pellets are barged up to the mill once or twice a month. Wood pellets are used extensively in Europe and Asia for heating and provide a greener alternative to fossil fuels." 

 

Neucel is investigating onsite small-scale production of some of the chemicals it uses in its processes instead of trucking or barging them in. "Due to our remote location, we’re in the planning process in a number of interesting initiatives but haven’t pulled the trigger yet," Cheng also said.

For the future, Cheng wants to upgrade the plant equipment’s energy efficiency. "We’re looking at some scheduled downtime and maintenance to allow for a large, one-time investment that would allow the mill to be net energy-efficient," Cheng concludes. "We want to be in a position where our machinery is efficient enough and we’re producing the pulp well enough that we would not be drawing any additional electricity from an oil or electric source. We would be generating our own electricity and reducing the amount of oil that we’re using right now to produce the pulp. Our goal is to produce some of the ‘greenest’ dissolving pulp in the world."