Sappi seeks more product from every tree
Category Company News
SAPPi’s technology unit is working on developing a market for nanocellulose and wood-derived sugars used to make renewable products such as biodegradable plastics, as the pulp and paper company searches for ways to use more of each of its trees.
Sappi said last month it would build a pilot plant to produce nanocellulose — a lightweight, high-strength material derived from wood — after the company and Edinburgh Napier University developed a new, low-cost way to extract it.
Punted for use in products such as packaging, touch-screen displays and car panels, nanocellulose has yet to reach any major commercial production as traditional methods to extract it are energy intensive and expensive, says Sappi technology head Andrea Rossi.
The company, in recent years, invested in one of its South African and one of its American paper mills to install a process called prehydrolysis kraft — used to strip hemicellulose from wood fibres to create dissolving woodpulp. Sappi mainly exports dissolving woodpulp — also known as specialised cellulose — to textiles manufacturers in the Far East from three of its factories. It is the world’s largest supplier of dissolving woodpulp, with a market share of about 20%.
But it is now also looking at possible uses for the sugars it can extract from hemicellulose, which is a component of the cell walls of wood fibres and is currently a waste product when making paper pulp and dissolving woodpulp.
“Typically the work that is being done worldwide and particularly here in Sappi — where we’ve done a lot of work with outside research organisations and companies — is into producing polylactic acids, which is the first move into biodegradable plastics,” Mr Rossi says.
Sappi, which has limited funds to invest in research and development (R&D) for new markets amid declining demand for paper, is trying to build a third pillar to its business to complement its pulp and paper operations. In moving to “near-andadjacent” products, the company hopes to start adding “biorefinery” products such as nanocellulose and polyactic acids.
The company — which is recovering from a period of high debt and dented profits, partly as a result of its dissolving woodpulp business — spends about 20m a year on improving processes and yields.
Since the early 2000s, it has also sets aside an additional $8m9m annually to develop new products and processes under its “Exciter” programme.
Sappi’s mainly packagingfocused competitor Mondi, which has fared better than Sappi in recent years partly thanks to a healthy packaging market, invested ¤14m in R&D during its 2013 financial year, Mondi’s most recent annual report shows.
Sappi’s Exciter programme funding, administered from the company’s head office in Johannesburg, aims to support its R&D activities into potential applications for woodpulp products from its technology centres, which include one in Pretoria and another at its Saiccor mill south of Durban. The company’s R&D hub in Westbrook, US, and its Maastricht-based centre in the Netherlands, focus on improving paper-making processes.
“We are looking at nanocellulose, paper-for-plastics, microbial coatings on paper to allow fruit and vegetables to last longer, and we’re looking at higher-strength packaging along with a number of different projects,” Mr Rossi says.
While wood-derived products are typically more expensive than more commonly used fossilbased alternatives, Mr Rossi says the paper industry has a leg up in that “the whole world now is looking at the advantage of products from trees — they’re renewable and biodegradable”.
Like other paper companies, Sappi is relatively self-sufficient when it comes to its energy needs. It also wants to supply more “green” energy to the national grid by boiling the natural lignin from trees or burning branches and other waste products to generate power.
Mr Rossi says the company also has an opportunity to make ethanols and natural polymers from its biomass waste as part of its planned biorefinery business.
“We’re busy on joint development agreements with suppliers, the industry and research institutes. We could have something ready round about June or July this year to see if it (a biorefinery facility) is viable in today’s terms.
“The typical cost of installing a plant like that would be about 100m, but it’s got some pretty good returns,” Mr Rossi says.
36One Asset Management analyst Jean Pierre Verster said last week that Sappi’s planned new business of making nanocellulose was likely to remain a niche unit for the foreseeable future, and not likely to “really move the dial for now”.
Author: Warehouse Finder
