In Germany, Zelfo Technology is building an engineered fiber production and research facility in Schwedt.
The company’s produces cellulosic and ligncellulosic fibers, including micro fibrillated cellulose, from a range of waste streams. Its technology enables fibers with specific properties, such as high degree of defibrillation. This improves binding capacity by a factor of several thousand.
The initial commercial target will be containerboard. “Forming strategic tie-ups with container box producers to produce industry specific products to penetrate in new application sectors is considered to be a major opportunity for the global containerboard market, and Zelfo Technology’s Engineered Fibres allow such opportunities to become a reality, not in the future, but today,” says Zelfo Technology’s Technical Director Trevor Dean. Figures from 2013 indicate Zelfo’s MFC can reduce grammage by over 200-billion square meters.
The Schwedt facility will be strategically located beside a European Moulded Fiber Operation Services GmbH packaging research and development center. It will also be close to two Leipa Paper facilities.