Finnish renewable and bio-packaging supplier Stora Enso Oyj is investing €9m in a pilot facility to manufacture raw materials for the production of polyethylene furanoate (PEF), a plant-based alternative to PET.
To be located at Stora Enso’s Langerbrugge paper mill site in Belgium, the unit will convert plant-based sugars into cost-competitive FDCA (furandicarboxylic acid), a building block required to make PEF.
To be run by Stora Enso's Biomaterials division, the plant is currently at the design and engineering stage. The construction work on the plant is set to begin in the second half of 2020, and completion is scheduled for the first quarter of 2021, the Finnish company said 10 Dec.
The investment, mainly targeting the food and beverage industry, will further strengthen Stora Enso's portfolio of renewable and recyclable materials to replace fossil-based alternatives.
In addition to its renewable nature, PEF offers attractive barrier, mechanical and thermal properties, opening up new packaging opportunities, such as small liquid containers for soft drinks, juices and other beverages.
"Bio-based materials are of rapidly growing interest in the packaging world as companies look for sustainable packaging materials with high performance," said Markus Mannström, executive vice president of Stora Enso's biomaterials division.
The pilot plant will validate Stora Enso’s chemical process and provide sample material to gain further insight into market need and product demand.
The facility will initially use industrially available fructose to produce high-value chemicals and materials for application testing. In the future, however, the intention is to run the process on sugars extracted from wood and other non-food biomasses.
Stora Enso will make a final decision about the commercialisation of the technology after evaluating the results of the pilot-scale production.
Stora Enso investing in bioplastics pilot plant
