Itochu Corporation and Metsä Spring partner to build a textile fibre demo plant
Metsä Spring
Ltd. (Metsä Group’s innovation company) and Japanese Itochu Corporation have
created a joint venture to build and operate a test plant where they will demonstrate
a new technology for converting paper-grade pulp into textile fibres (see press
release, 1/10/2018). This demo plant is the first investment of
Metsä Spring, established in May 2018 with the target to identify and develop
new business opportunities within the sustainable forest-based bioeconomy and
circular economy. Business Finland (a Finnish governmental funding
agency) participates in the financing of the project with an R&D loan.
Location
|
Next to Metsä
Group’s bioproduct mill in Äänekoski (Finland).
|
Feedstock
|
Metsä
Group’s wet paper-grade pulp.
|
Product
|
Textile
fibres.
|
Capacity
|
500
tons/year.
|
Technology
|
Based on
direct dissolution using a novel solvent for the pulp dissolution stage.
|
General
engineering partner
|
|
Cost
|
40 M€.
|
Timeline
|
Construction
beginning: October 2018.
Start-up:
Late 2019.
|
Figure 1. Itochu Corporation and Metsä Spring
partner to build a textile fibre demo plant (extracted from the press release)
The new technology is estimated to be more
environmentally-friendly than the textile fibre production technologies
currently in use. Its basis has been developed in joint research programmes
since 2009. The main collaborators, in terms of development of the technology,
include Aalto University, University of Helsinki, VTT and TITK. Metsä Group’s
own active development work started in 2012.
Based on the results achieved in the plant, they
evaluate the technical and economic options of building a larger facility in
Finland in the future. During the demo stage, which is expected to last two to
three years from the start-up of the plant, they will also gather customer
feedback related to the new fibres.
