Wood bio-refining is here defined as full utilization of wood into a wide range of products. The kraft pulp process is here one unique possibility. It is well-developed, industrially implemented and minor modifications are needed to convert a kraft pulp mill into an advanced bio-refinery producing technically pure wood polymers and other products by the following approaches: · Co-processing other bio-based feed-stocks as forestry residues, sugar cane bagasse and by-products from agriculture into lignin, cellulose (glucose) and C5/C6 hemicellulose. · Extracting lignin and xylan from the black liquor. · Extracting C5/C6 hemicellulose prior to kraft cooking. · Utilizing internal pulp mill process streams such as solid by-products and black liquor evaporation condensate. Cellulose with high purity and high reactivity can by produced from wood by pre-hydrolysis followed by kraft pulping. This is interesting for environmentally benign processes for regenerated cellulose. A major break-through (activation in the pulp mill) has recently been made making it possible to produce regenerated cellulose without carbon disulfide. Glucose from side-streams is an attractive intermediate for lactic acid, acetic acid and ethanol. Hemicelluloses it can be separated from hydrolysis stage of wood prior the kraft cooking, from pulp fibers and from black liquor. Hemicelluloses are interesting as raw material in applications such as paper chemicals, composites and gas barriers. Lignin removal from kraft black liquors can be produced with the LignoBoost process and similar processes. The first commercial LignoBoost plant started production 2013 in the US. The next installation starts production Q1 2015 in Finland. Besides fuel applications promising results have been obtained with carbon fibers from kraft lignin. Due to the high aromatic content lignin shows promise as feed-stock for phenols, other aromatics and transportation fuel.

Full utilization of wood in the future pulp mill bio-refinery

249th National Meeting (2015)

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