Final Report Summary - ECOTARGET (New and innovative processes for radical changes of the European pulp and paper industry)
The overall objective of the ECOTARGET project was to provide the pulp and paper industry and its allied industries with radical changes in its production processes in order to enhance competitiveness along with improved sustainability. This means that improvements in production efficiency and product quality shall go hand in hand with environmental and societal considerations. The leading idea is making more and better products with less use of raw materials, energy and water and at the same time reduce residues, waste and emissions.
The total work conducted by ECOTARGET has resulted in a variety of newly developed processes. Some of them are already on the market (sensors for control of recovered papers and new additives for process water for example), some are ready for demonstration (stratified forming of paper for example) and some will need some more research and development work before demonstration (new energy efficient mechanical pulping process for example).
Since this industry has a very capital intensive structure and needs heavy investments for new implementations, there is a certain time frame between when very promising pilot-scale results are obtained and until a larger installation has taken place. In some cases between 5-10 years, depending on the size of the investment, the timing for the mill that will implement etc. There are, however, so many promising results from this project that we are confident that most of the ideas will result in implementations all over Europe.
The total work conducted by ECOTARGET has resulted in a variety of newly developed processes. Some of them are already on the market (sensors for control of recovered papers and new additives for process water for example), some are ready for demonstration (stratified forming of paper for example) and some will need some more research and development work before demonstration (new energy efficient mechanical pulping process for example).
Since this industry has a very capital intensive structure and needs heavy investments for new implementations, there is a certain time frame between when very promising pilot-scale results are obtained and until a larger installation has taken place. In some cases between 5-10 years, depending on the size of the investment, the timing for the mill that will implement etc. There are, however, so many promising results from this project that we are confident that most of the ideas will result in implementations all over Europe.
