Metsä Group’s innovation company Metsä Spring Ltd. and Japanese Itochu Corporation establish a joint venture, which invests approximately Euro 40 million in building and operating a test plant, with the aim to demonstrate a new technology for converting paper-grade pulp into textile fibres.
The textile fibre demo plant will be located next to Metsä Group’s bioproduct mill in Äänekoski, Finland. Construction of the demo plant, with an annual capacity of about 500 tonnes, begins in October 2018 and it is planned to be started up in late 2019. The general engineering partner is Sweco.
The new technology to be studied and further developed in the demo project is based on direct dissolution using a novel solvent for the pulp dissolution stage. Metsä Group’s wet paper-grade pulp will be used as the raw material. The new technology is estimated to be more environmentally-friendly than the textile fibre production technologies currently in use.
The textile fibre demo plant is the first investment of Metsä Spring, established in May 2018. Metsä Spring invests together with partners in new endeavours with the target to identify and develop new business opportunities within the sustainable forest-based bioeconomy and circular economy.
