The first LignoBoost plant is sold to Domtar
Today, the technology company Metso announced the sale of the first commercial LignoBoost plant. The LignoBoost process, which was developed by researchers at Innventia and Chalmers University of Technology, will enable Domtar to increase its pulp mill capacity while also benefiting from a new by-product.
“We were delighted to learn that Metso has sold a LignoBoost plant,” says Innventia’s Per Tomani, one of the inventors of the LignoBoost process. “We see LignoBoost as an extremely important piece of the puzzle in the development of modern kraft pulp mills for biorefineries and producers of valuable new products. Lignin can be used as a high-quality biofuel or as a bio-based raw material for chemicals and materials.”
LignoBoost was developed through research cooperation between Innventia and Chalmers University of Technology, and is a cost-effective process for extracting high-quality lignin, primarily from kraft pulp mills. The process makes it possible to increase capacity at a lower cost than enlarging a “narrow” recovery boiler. Profitability can be improved further if the lignin can be used, for example, as a replacement for fossil fuel oil in a pulp mill’s lime kiln or as a raw material in the production of even more valuable products such as carbon fibres.
In May 2008, Innventia sold the LignoBoost technology to Metso Power AB, a technology company based in Gothenburg, which now markets the process. A number of projects are underway in cooperation between Innventia and Metso, dealing with continued research and development of the process, as well as applications for the lignin produced.