Project

Production of special pulps

Lead Institute HF Institute of Wood Research

Production of specialty cellulose pulp from alternative raw materials for high-quality applications

The aim of the project, performed in cooperation with the company Josef Rettenmaier & Söhne, is the energy- and resource-efficient generation of specialty cellulose pulps from alternative, so far scarcely used raw material sources (wheat straw, Miscanthus Giganteus, beech residual forest wood) for high-quality applications.

Background and Objective

In many cases, specially designed pulps for specific high-valued applications are not available. Therefore, expensive but not optimally suited market pulps must be used. The project target is to produce tailor-made specialty pulps for manufacture of microcrystalline and microfibrillated cellulose. For this purpose, alternative raw materials like wheat straw or Miscanthus should be used as raw materials.

Approach

The parameters for pulping and bleaching of the non-wood raw materials wheat straw and Miscanthus Giganteus are optimized in such a way that fibre materials can be made for high-quality applications, in particular cellulosic gels based on microcrystalline cellulose with high functionality for the food sector or microfibrillated cellulose. Subsequently, application tests should be carried out.