Listen to Henrik Brodin from Södra at the Advanced Biofuels Conference 2023!

Henrik Brodin from Södra

That industrial-scale lignocellulosic ethanol production capability has been around for the best part of a century may come as a surprise to some. However, Borregaard, Europe’s longstanding lignocellulosic ethanol producer, has been producing lignocellulosic ethanol as a by-product from its cellulose production for over fifty years now – about 20 million litres annually.

Globally, kraft pulping is the most common form of chemical pulping for wood and is a process designed to recover the cooking chemicals and heat. Roughly half of the initial pulpwood material is dissolved in the black liquor, and it is from this that various components and biochemicals such as tall oil and methanol can be extracted prior to the combustion of black liquor in a recovery boiler for heat and power.

Thus, having energy-efficient pulping processes enables the recovery of tall oil and methanol from black liquor – the power of supplementing existing efforts toward net zero emissions as Henrik Brodin, Head of Energy Transition at Södra might say. The Swedish forest owner’s association Södra was the first to deploy a commercial-scale methanol recovery unit at its Södra Cell Mönsterås pulpmill – others have since followed suit. Tall oil from Södra’s pulp mills is processed into a refinery-ready feedstock at SunPine’s facility in Piteå whereas the biomethanol displaces fossil methanol in biodiesel production. The company is a partner in Silva Green Fuel, a joint venture with Statkraft to demonstrate renewable diesel production from logging residues.

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