February 1, 2012 | ||||||||
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Making nanotechnology pay While nanotechnology
has been talked about for some time, within our industry not much has
been done. One of the first pulp and paper companies to recognize and
capitalize on its value is CelluForce, a joint venture of Domtar Corporation
and FPInnovations, created in July 2010 to manufacture nanocrystalline
cellulose (NCC), a recyclable and renewable nanomaterial extracted from
trees.
The NCC will be produced in a 35,000 sq ft commercial demonstration
plant on the site of Domtar's pulp and paper mill in Windsor, Quebec,
Canada, and staffed by about 30 employees from the Windsor mill. The
$42 million project, of which $32 million came in the form of government
support, was officially inaugurated on January 26, 2012.
CelluForce plans to sell the extract, under the trademarks of "Impact"
and "Allure," to clients in the paint and coatings, bioplastics and
textile industries. Addition of NCC can make products up to 10 times
stronger, according to Jean Moreau, the company's president and CEO
and former vice president of finance with Domtar. Moreau now spends
much of his time looking for market applications for the CelluForce
product. "We're bringing a virtually non-toxic bio-product to market
for industries that will no longer need to use environmentally harmful
chemicals in the manufacture of their products," he says.
WHAT IS NCC? Moreau notes that the new venture differs from traditional pulp and
paper products because "the input is pulp and the output is NCC, which
is a specialty chemical ingredient."
UP AND RUNNING CelluForce uses dry hardwood pulp from the Windsor operation, and converts
it to NCC using a revolutionary technological breakthrough developed
by FPInnovations (FPI). When the liquid slurry is dried, the product
looks like tack powder and ships in bags and on pallets. A little NCC
goes a long way. When added to a coating or polymer, the dosage required
is very small and one ton of NCC can produce about 50 tons of finished
product.
"Pulp and paper applications are at a minimum right now, say Moreau.
"Some pulp and paper companies are knocking on our door such as from
the packaging side where we can enhance film or barrier aspect or strength.
On the coating side, at this point, it is really a specialty product."
One interesting potential application that Moreau cites is for use
in security papers. As NCC has "needles" that lean in one direction,
it could be used to make paper that can shift colors and make it virtually
impossible to copy.
BIO-CANADA According to Moreau, Domtar is leading the way on this product because
when FPI knocked on the door, "John D. Williams and his management team
had the vision to realize that it was a risky start up as it was new
technology, but realized that we are part of an industry that is going
down at the pulp and paper level and we need to invest in new technologies.
This is just one of a number in the pipeline.
"If we are successful on the technical side, we could be looking at
a significant market size in the range of several ten thousands of tons,
which looks quite small, but as a specialty product with nice pricing,
it could be a very interesting business venture," said Moreau. "Being
the first plant up and running in the world give us a great advantage."
According
to Moreau, the demo plant is ultimately just to demonstrate the characteristics
of the product. If successful, the company will build new commercial
plants around the world.
"We believe we are at the level to create a new market, almost an extension
of the pulp market," concludes Moreau. "Taking it to a different level
allows us to bring wood fiber into a totally different environment."
To read more about how nanotechnology is re-shaping the pulp and
paper industry, see the January/February 2012 issue of Paper360°
magazine,("Thinking Small is leading to Big Changes"), available soon
at: www.paper360.org,
or contact gostle@tappi.org.
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