Verifying a new wood chipping process

Important results from the project

The objectives of the activities conducted in lab, pilot and full scale within this project has been basically achieved. The modified chipping technique is shown to have a potential to improve both energy and production efficiency at all wood-chip based pulp production processes regardless of if it is chip-refinerbased processes as thermo-mechanical and chemi-mechanical pulping or if it is chemical pulping processes such as sulphate and sulphite.

Expected long term effects

The project has resulted in new insights into how the new chipping technique can be implemented in the pulp and paper industry. The technology is expected within a ten year period to be implemented at all pulp production processes where there is a need for increased production and / or energy efficiciency and where the bottleneck in the manufacturing system consists of unit operations such as cooking and chip refining.

Approach and implementation

The project was built and was conducted according to the following three milestones: 1. Full scale tests with modified chips in a TMP plant 2. Development of business models and IPR 3. Mill trial with chemical pulp and pilot tests chemi-mechanical pulp The analysis of the project´s outcome suggests that all three milestones could be carried out about the plan. However, we had to ask for an extension of the original time plan as full-scale trials means that we must adapt to our industry partners timeframes.