Future technological development direction of pulp and paper industry

Academician Chen Kefu has been engaged in research and teaching of light industry, pulp and paper engineering for a long time. The engineering research fields include bleaching technology of medium and high concentration pulping, sheet forming technology, coating and coating technology, clean production technology and equipment of pulping and papermaking, key technology and equipment of modern paper machine; In the theoretical research areas of chemical fluid mechanics, fiber suspension rheology. He has edited or edited 9 books, published more than 200 papers indexed by SCI and EI, and has obtained more than 30 invention patents. He has won 1 second prize of National technological invention, 1 second prize of National Science and Technology Progress, 1 third prize of National Science and technology Progress, and 2 first prize of science and technology progress of the Ministry of Education. He was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering in 2003.

Congratulations on the 40th anniversary of Zhonghua Paper. On the media platform of Zhonghua Paper, I have published "Reflections on the Sustainable Development of the Paper Industry in Guangdong Province" (May 2001), "Development and Countermeasures of the Private Paper Industry" (October 2001), "Some Issues on the Independent Innovation Strategy Research of China's pulp and paper Equipment Manufacturing Industry" (June 2006), and "Improving the independent innovation ability of the paper industry Construction of paper technology innovation system "(July 2007) and other articles.

"China Paper" and our country's reform and opening up synchronously, and China's paper industry to grow together. Now, the reform and opening up has entered a new era, the development of paper industry has entered a new period of adjustment and upgrading, and China Paper has entered a new stage of integration and development of old and new media. This paper discusses the new direction and new goal of engineering technology in the field of papermaking industry in China.

For papermaking advanced countries, most of the advanced technology has been mature application; Energy conservation and emission reduction, clean production, has become the norm, the unit capacity of water consumption, electricity consumption, pollutant emissions are within the scope of the country and society, has embarked on the road of green development; The design capacity, running speed and intelligent control of the equipment manufacturing industry have met the needs of the industry.

Some experts believe that the current pulp and paper technology of advanced countries in the world is enough to continue to use for many years. However, in order to promote the development of the paper industry, it is necessary to explore the future development of engineering science and technology in the field of paper making, and formulate the future research and development focus of engineering science and technology, that is, the medium and long-term development strategy.

1 Future major scientific and technological plans for advanced areas of pulp and paper making

1.1 Early European region

The Federation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) launched the "Forest Fiber Industry Roadmap 2050" in November 2011. The main objective of the road map is to find out how CO2 emissions can be reduced by 80% while generating more than 50% added value. Breakthrough technologies are needed to achieve this set goal. This means that if these breakthrough technologies are required to be fully deployed by 2050, then they must be commercially available by 2030.

CEPI first establishes the concept of breakthrough technologies (technology list), which requires that these breakthrough technologies can be used in industry after 10 to 20 years. A total of 8 technical concepts, such as the successful implementation of these technologies, will create better opportunities for the industry, make the industry more competitive and create more value in the future, and promote the sustainable development of the pulp and paper industry.

The future breakthrough technologies announced by CEPI are:

(1) Pulp production new technology - low eutectic solvent production of pulp

This technology will open up a new way to produce pulp at low temperature and atmospheric pressure. By using deep eutectic solvents, any type of biomass can be dissolved into lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose with minimal energy consumption, carbon emissions and residues, with the goal of achieving a 50% reduction in pulping energy consumption.

If the current pulping energy consumption can be reduced by 50%, this will be a major breakthrough in energy conservation in the pulping and paper industry, because pulping energy consumption is one of the largest energy consuming units in the pulping and paper process.

(2) Put forward the concept of waterless papermaking technology

At present, papermaking technology consumes a lot of energy and water resources, and the fiber concentration of pulp is only about 1%. The papermaking process requires complex equipment units to dehydrate, making papermaking the largest energy consumption unit. The international papermaking science and technology community has seen great disadvantages of energy-consuming papermaking methods with very low fiber concentration, and intends to find ways to solve this problem.