BY ADELE PETERS
Spinnova has found a way to spin any cellulose–wood, potato peels, even old T-shirts–into new, strong fiber.
In a new pilot factory in Jyväskylä, Finland–a city surrounded by forests and known in part for its lumber and paper industries–a startup will soon begin to turn wood pulp into something new: a type of fabric that could eventually compete with cotton.
Making wood into fabric isn’t new, but older wood-based fabrics like rayon use harsh chemicals that can pollute water and poison workers. The new fabric, made by a startup called Spinnova, uses a mechanical process instead of chemicals; the only byproduct is evaporated water, which is reused in production. Unlike cotton, which uses massive amounts of water in areas often prone to droughts, it needs little water, no pesticides, and no farmland.
The new process uses FSC-certified wood pulp that’s ground into a gel-like material called microfibrillated cellulose, which is made of tiny fibers. The material flows through the startup’s patented machinery to create a network of fibers that are spun and dried into a fluffy, firm wool that can be knit or woven into fabric and then made into clothing, shoes, or other textiles.
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, the leading research and technology company in the Nordic countries, is seeking a carbon capture technology for Finnish power and heat production plants. The first pilots were implemented, using wood pellets, at VTT’s Bioruukki and the results are promising.
Finland is well on its way to achieving the 2020 climate goals, but it is already clear that the goals for 2050 are impossible to attain without major changes in energy production and other industries.
VTT has calculated that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) could cost-effectively cover one third of Finland’s share of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. More than 80 per cent of carbon capture measures would concern the burning or refining biomass, and the rest would concern the coal-intensive industry. Biomass is a renewable natural fuel that binds carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as it grows. If the carbon dioxide generated by burning of biomass is captured and permanently stored deep in bedrock, carbon dioxide can be removed from the atmosphere.
Chemical Looping Combustion (CLC) is a promising carbon capture technology suitable for new plants. This technology produces flue gas that consists of carbon dioxide and water vapour as a by-product. Since the gas contains no nitrogen, carbon dioxide is easy to separate and capture – unlike in alternative technologies. Biomass burning with the help of the CLC technology (Bio-CLC) is a new research area, and VTT’s experiments in the sector are pioneering on a global scale.