Culturing of algae could provide environmental benefits and new business opportunities for pulp and paper mills around the world. That's the idea behind a new swedish project coordinated by The Paper Province. Together with a number of stakeholders the cluster organisation recently conducted a feasibility study on how mircoalgae couls be used to make bio fuel from mill residues.
- This shows the strength found in The Paper Province, where nearly one hundred companies with different specialties interact with academia and public actors. This creates opportunities for innovative solutions and is one of the reasons that The Paper Province ranks as a world-class Clusters, says Maria Hollander, CEO at The Paper Province.
Waste converted into resources
The idea is that the algae use nutrients in the mills' warm wastewater and binds carbon dioxide from waste gas. Algaes could be used to produce bio-fuel, -oil or -gas. The new process will reduce eutrophication and carbon dioxide emissions and create new revenue streams for mills.
- A very exicting project that ties together a range of stakeholders. In time, the project will hopefully contribute to increased profiability for the mills, says Magnus Persson, head of The Paper Province's center for energy efficiency, Energy Square.
Reduces the environmental footprint
An initial feasibility study identified potential partners along the chain, from plant to end-users and outlined what process might look like. Now pilot studies are to be done at Nordic Paper Bäckhammer, a mill producing around 200 000 tonnes of unbleached pulp and 130 000 tonnes of unbleached Kraft paper a year.
-This could help to strengthen our revenues within the energy sectors, which makes us less sensitive to economic cycles. It would also help to reduce our environmental footprint significantly. said Tarjei Svensen, Lab and Environmental Manager at Nordic Paper Bäckhammer.
Apart from The Paper Province and Nordic Paper Bäckhammer the project involves a number of other actors; Head Engineering, Karlstad University, Nynas, Regional Energy Agency of Värmland, SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, Svanberg Bona Officia, Sweco and Tengbom. The project is supported by Vinnova, the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems.
At the beginning the project is primarily focused on the pulp and paper industry, but the process could eventually be interesting for other industries and users as well.