BioRegional MiniMill Technology-report on UK Demonstration Mill

摘要

Straw and other agricultural crops can make good paper but as they are bulky it is only economic to pulp locally on a smaller scale than traditional wood pulp mills. To date, there has been no commercially viable technology to recover energy and chemicals from black liquor effluent on a small scale. Consequently, the use of straw for paper is declining as new mills cannot be opened for environmental reasons and existing straw mills either cause water pollution or are closed down. Since 1997, BioRegional MiniMills UK Ltd have carried out a series of trials at a laboratory and pilot scale to develop new technology for small-scale energy and chemical recovery from pulp mill black liquor effluent and a new method of pulping using a twin screw extruder. A demonstration plant comprising a feed system, twin screw pulper and black liquor system was installed in Manchester, UK in January 2006 and a testing and development program is in progress for both straw and abaca black liquor treatment and straw pulp for printing and writing paper. The test programme is expected to be completed in Summer 2007. Interim results are reported within this paper.