Finding new usesExciting research is underway at Canfor Pulp, a world-leading, sustainable producer of wood pulp based in British Columbia, Canada. The goal is to generate novel end uses for the product and green power

Director of Research Dr Paul Watson gives an insight into the innovative pulp and paper products and customer centric approaches that are keeping Canfor Pulp at the top of the global market

To begin, could you highlight some of the research taking place at Canfor Pulp?

Our core business is a biorefi nery where we produce and sell high-quality kraft pulp fi bres from sawmill residual wood chips and green energy from waste or low-quality biomass. Cellulose and lignin are the most abundant biopolymers on Earth. Cellulose is the chemical basis for our pulp fi bres and, once extracted, lignin is the basis for our green energy production.

There is a wide variety of research underway at Canfor. Between our mills and our customers’ tissue, paper and speciality products’ manufacturing machines lies a technology called refi ning. It has been around for a long time and there are many variations, but even today it is a ‘black box’ and large consumer of power. We

are working with university partners to develop a better understanding of the fi bre-fi bre and fi bre-refi ner plate interactions taking place within refi ners to develop theoretical understanding and practical solutions. For example, our colleagues at the University of British Columbia (UBC) have been tracking fi bre fl ows in a refi ner with a novel clear window using tracers.

Remaining competitive is fundamental to your work; how do you ensure this is achieved?

Canfor Pulp has a strong balance sheet, and we annually invest over CAD $30 million in our facilities to maintain our competitive advantage. We have access to a unique fi bre endowment from our central British Columbia forests where the trees are slow grown, resulting in fi bres that are long, slender and thin-walled with superior

Pioneers of pulp

PULP IS ONE of the most abundant raw materials worldwide and the basis for paper. It is made by separating the cellulose fi bres in wood to create a fi brous material, and represents a major global industry. Canadian company Canfor Pulp is a leading supplier of this high-demand material and has been actively engaged in R&D at dedicated facilities for more than 15 years.

The company creates high-quality pulp from a waste material; sawmill wood chips. The wood is deconstructed to release cellulose-rich pulp fi bres, and the lignin (the ‘glue’ that binds the cellulose fi bres in trees) is used as a biofuel, generating heat and power for Canfor’s mills. Canfor is a forward-looking company, and ongoing research aims to fi nd new products, sources of green energy and ways to improve both the environmental and process performance of its operations.

This work is conducted in Canfor Pulp’s Research and Innovation arm, directed by Dr Paul Watson. Canfor is truly leading the fi eld in terms of novelty, technical complexity, green energy production and sustainability; producing a product from a raw material that is largely a waste product.

AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION

Canfor manufactures high-strength pulp and paper products, supplying an array of customers across the globe. It utilises unique fi bres taken from the slow growing forests of western Canada and processes them to produce pulps unsurpassed in their ability to reinforce

weaker furnishes. Testament to the company’s dedication to high-quality products, excellent customer service and environmental awareness, Canfor Pulp is internationally renowned for its ability to support the needs of papermakers.

The type of pulp produced is called northern softwood kraft pulp (NSK) and is generated at

Images generated using confocal two photon microscopy; upper left masking tape showing distribution of pulp fi bres and adhesive; upper right printed paper sheet showing ink, fi bre, fi ller and optical brightening agent distributions; lower – fi bre and fi ller distribution in a publication paper. Courtesy of Dr HoFan Jang, FPInnovations.

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tensile strength; ideal for a range of products. We sell the product to customers who require high strength reinforcement fibres in a technical fit approach through our technical marketing (Temap) programme.

Canfor Pulp Innovation is a cornerstone of Canfor Pulp Ltd. We assist with cost reduction opportunities in the day-to-day operation of our mills, and are working with customers to reduce their costs by offering support to optimise refining and reduce the pulp content in their products, taking advantage of the inherent strength of our fibres while maintaining our sales volumes.

Are you currently developing any exciting new products or partnerships?

Our business is about producing precursors – cellulose, green electrons and lignin-based products – for the future. We are facilitating novel end uses with the view to developing and growing new markets for our products. As such, we have a suite of projects underway with partners worldwide to develop novel composites, modified cellulose products, novel fibre monitoring technologies and biofuel.

The Pulp Grants programme has helped research in areas of specific interest to Canfor Pulp. Could you give an insight into this?

This programme has been underway for four years and achieved recognition from the Minister for Industry in Canada. It has attracted a wide range of university researchers to look into challenges and opportunities for our industry. We currently support projects looking at the novel utilisation of ash as a fertiliser for seedling establishment, advanced tomography and image analysis to visualise softwood fibres in paper, and sourcing valuable chemicals from mill waste streams.

How does your unique ‘market-pull’ approach ensure success?

Our research efforts are directed by feedback from our customers and as such we tend to pursue projects that both have an identifiable application and anticipate future needs. By its nature, this market-pull approach ensures a demand that can be sustained if and when a

product or service is available to the market. This approach has served us well in selecting projects, bringing them to market and seeing a timely return on investment. For such a small team we enjoy good success, great partnerships and a growing technical reputation.

In which direction do you hope to take Canfor’s R&D sector in the coming five years?

Market pressures from South American suppliers and decreasing demand for traditional paper products are creating new opportunities for our standard product suite in specialty end use applications, and for new cellulosic materials manufactured from pulp fibres. New end uses for natural fibres and their use to displace synthetic fibres on non-renewable products is a challenging but significant opportunity. We plan to expand on our network of global partners within and outside traditional forest products as we develop new products, end uses and solutions for seemingly intractable issues.

the company’s three mills in British Columbia, all located near Prince George on the Fraser River. Produced primarily from residual chips made at local sawmills, the resultant pulps are in high demand across the globe due to their ability to reinforce a range of papers and composite products. Despite this, R&D remains critical in order for Canfor Pulp to maintain competitiveness. Thus, at its R&D centre – Canfor Pulp Innovation – new ways of using fibres are being researched for the benefit of the company and its customers.

For over 15 years, Canfor Pulp has actively engaged in in-house R&D at a dedicated facility, focusing on the production and utilisation of pulp and paper products and collaborating with national and international research organisations and universities in the process. The Pulp and Paper Research Group is focused on three main areas: developing novel pulp grades and improving the properties of existing products; working with customers to ensure they obtain the maximum value from pulps; and improving both the environmental and process performance of operations at the company.

CUSTOMER-DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT

At the very core of Canfor’s strategy is a close working relationship with its customers, ensuring maximum value and reducing cost and production times. One particularly beneficial outcome of these close ties was the Mihari (Japanese for watchguard) project. “This was the outcome of listening to customers, identifying the opportunity and developing the

solution to their request for relevant timely and novel information that they can use in their production processes,” Watson explains.

Mihari was based on Toyota’s Total Quality Management (TQM) concept, established in response to the growing technical and information needs of customers. Indeed, with increasingly sophisticated end products being developed by Canfor’s customers, there became a need for more in-depth knowledge of raw materials and their performance. The project thus offers users a unique suite of information based on the implementation of cutting-edge technologies able to measure fibre quality across the entire pulping process – from wood chips to pulp bale at Canfor’s mills. Mihari delivers a huge volume of data, which will be managed to create useful information by multivariate statistical software.

MEASURING THE THICKNESS OF A SINGLE FIBRE

Before Mihari, information on Canfor’s pulp quality was only available after extensive manual testing, which took several days to complete following manufacture. Now, with a secure web app, customers will be able to access their shipment pulp quality information using a simple dropdown menu and in real-time.

Among the suite of technologies Mihari offers to measure pulp fibre properties, is a unique ‘fibre wall thickness module’. In collaboration with colleagues in Canada and further afield in Sweden, Canfor Pulp developed a way

to measure the wall thickness of individual fibres online.

This involves a flow-through device using circular polarised light, which Watson describes as the Holy Grail for fibre physicists. “At present, trained technologists and expensive microscopes are required, and only small sized samples can be tested. This is a huge development for our sector and announcements will be forthcoming,” he enthuses.

SUSTAINABLE APPROACH

Alongside customer care is care for the surrounding environment. Canfor Pulp acts in a way that is not only efficient, but also environmentally friendly. The company’s mills manufacture a sustainable and recyclable product, made from a waste raw material using power generated from green sources.

Uniquely identified papermaking fibres in 3D images of paper acquired using X-ray tomographic microscopy. © Yash Sharma, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of British Columbia.

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OBJECTIVES

• To develop new pulp grades and improve the properties of existing products

• To work with Canfor Pulp’s customers to ensure maximum value is being realised from the unique attributes found in the company’s pulps

• To improve the environmental and process performance of pulp operations

FUNDING

Canfor Pulp Innovation is 100 per cent supported by Canfor Pulp. For major initiatives specifi c funding may be obtained, if available, from federal and provincial government sources, in part to offset some risk.

CONTACT

Dr Paul WatsonDirector, Canfor Pulp Research and Innovation

Canfor Pulp Products Incorporated230-1700 West 75th AveVancouver, British ColumbiaV6P 6G2Canada

T +1 604 505 8748E paul.watson@canforpulp.com

http://bit.ly/1otpTbh

DR PAUL WATSON is Director of Research and Innovation for Canfor Pulp Ltd (CPL) in Vancouver, Canada, where he is responsible for the development and implementation of the CPL’s global Open Innovation programme and delivery of CPL’s unique Temap technical marketing programme. Previously, he was Program Manager of Fibre Supply and Quality with the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada (Paprican) and acting Director of the Vancouver laboratory. He is the architect of the EvaluTree (Paprican) and Mihari (CPLP) initiatives supported in part by Canadian federal and provincial agencies. He received his PhD in Pulping Chemistry from the University of Auckland in New Zealand in 1990 and has co-authored more than 50 publications on topics related to pulping, fi bre quality and tissue.

Furthermore, over 98 per cent of the chemicals used in the cooking of wood chips are regenerated by the mills.

Indeed, biofuel is a major focus of research at Canfor Pulp, with its three mills being the largest single point producer of green power in North America. With the support of local power utility BC Hydro, Canfor now has over 150 megawatts of green power generation capacity. “We are currently evaluating technologies for the production of bio-crude from waste biomass and hope to announce a major initiative later this year,” Watson comments. The company partners with several biomass to biofuel conversion companies, showing genuine promise for industrial implementation. Working in Canada, Finland, Australia and the US, Watson is currently in the process of completing the patents and fi nal business arrangements.

FUTURE OUTLOOK

In other sustainability-focused work, the team is developing a number of plastic composite applications that allow substitution of renewable fi bres for those manufactured from petroleum based sources. “We have achieved some very promising candidate products and are developing patents and markets,” Watson reveals.

With Canfor, the future looks promising for pulp. Research at the company is changing the face of the pulp industry; fi nding new applications for this traditional product and new and more sustainable ways to produce it.

PARTNERS

Canfor Pulp collaborates with pulp stakeholders across the globe

Universities: University of British Columbia; University of Northern British Columbia; Université Laval; British Columbia Institute of Technology, Canada; University of Edinburgh, UK

Research institutes: Innventia, Sweden; Scion, New Zealand; FPInnovations, Canada; Centre Technique du Papier, France

Technology providers: PulpEye, Sweden; Metso, Finland; Voith Tissue, Brazil; Buckman, USA

Forest products companies: CMPC, Chile; UPM, Finland; CHH, New Zealand; Fibria, Brazil

Environmental success

Canfor’s Pulp and Specialty Paper Mill was recognised with the National Environmental Strategy Award. Awarded by the Pulp and Paper Technical Association of Canada (PAPTAC), it acknowledged improvements in environmental performance achieved by the mill over the past 10 years. Signifi cant contributing projects include:

• The Increased Biofuel Power Project: Led to the production of an additional 7,560 megawatt hours (MWh) of renewable energy

• The Prince George Odour Reduction Project: Reduced detectible odour events in the city of Prince George by 60 per cent

• The Boiler Feedwater Treatment Project: Will increase renewable power by over 6,000 MWh per year and save an estimated 500 Gj per day in water and heat loss to the effl uent treatment system

Canfor Pulp’s Northwood mill

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INTELLIGENCE