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 pulp 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 aims to demonstrate increased production output, higher dissolving pulp quality, lower operating costs, and a new optimized 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.