Stora Enso to build a pilot plant for manufacturing a biobased packaging foam

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Type of post: NEWS IN BRIEF. 

Stora Enso will build a pilot facility for producing Cellufoam™, a lightweight, fiber-based foam material for protective packaging and cushioning. Biobased foams are renewable and recyclable and can be used in packaging, for example, to replace oil-based polymer foams (such as expanded polyethylene and expanded polystyrene) which are widely used today. 

Figure 1. Cellufoam™ by Stora Enso (taken from the press release) 

The initial target application for Cellufoam™ will be the protective packaging of fragile products, for example in consumer electronics. Biobased foams also have the potential to replace polymeric foams in a range of markets and applications where the demand for sustainable materials is increasing (sports equipment, thermal insulation in shipments and as a growth medium in soil-free farming, among other areas). Stora Enso’s pilot aims to evaluate and validate Cellufoam™ as a packaging foam in customer tests and to further develop the production process. 

The new pilot plant will be part of Stora Enso’s Biomaterials division and will be located at its Fors Mill in Sweden. The mill today produces light-weight paperboards for consumer packaging and its energy production is free from fossil-CO2 emissions. The pilot plant investment will not impact the mill’s current production. 

The design and engineering of the pilot facility will start immediately. It is estimated that the plant will be ready in the fourth quarter of 2021. Decisions about commercialisation will follow, after evaluating the results of the pilot-scale production.

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