Zelfo Technology (ZT) has reached an important milestone in its technical development
program and will open an Engineered Fibre production and R&D unit in Schwedt, Northern
Germany.
The company engineers cellulosic and ligno-cellulosic fibres from a wide range of sources
including industrial, agricultural and horticultural waste streams to impart user specific fibre
properties including a high degree of defibrillation thus multiplying the binding capability of the
material by a factor of several thousand.
The engineered fibre products offered by Zelfo Technology include Micro Fibrillated Cellulose
(MFC) which has been a widely talked about subject in recent years, resulting an incredible
amount of scientific research and patents being registered. Such intensive activity in MFC has
resulted as pulp producers look to find new uses for their prime product, cellulose, and because
its foreseen applications are extremely wide in many industries. Zelfo Technology takes the
subject one step further in producing controlled mixtures of macro, micro and nano scale fibres
using a patented production process thereby dramatically extending the range of uses.
Zelfo Technology has been a pioneer in this kind of fibre engineering since 2010, focusing
primarily on upgrading waste sources. The company is now committing to developing and
producing packaging based fibre additives with, for example, immediate applications in the
liner and fluting sectors.
Indications are that the use of a percentage of engineered corrugated container waste (OCC)
can allow liner and fluting producers to make significant reductions in grammage, without
negatively impacting on the end-product performance. “This means raw material savings, but
this also and more importantly means a reduction of the weight of the final product, which has
far more sustainable implications throughout the product’s lifecycle” says ZT CEO Richard
Hurding. Furthermore, engineered fibre can carry more filler and performance enhancing
chemistry etc.
ZT is concentrating on the containerboard market as it is primarily driven by increasing
industrial and manufacturing activity. Better transportation and shipment facilities, improved
durability and strength of container boxes, as well as safety and aesthetics of the packaging
are anticipated to be major drivers of the market. The growing demand for lightweight and
innovative packaging is also driving the global containerboard market, as eco-friendly and
recyclable product specification obtained due to containerboard are forcing manufacturers and
industries to use corrugated boxes.
Strong, lightweight and cost effective containerboards are anticipated to be the major
opportunity criteria for the developing global containerboard market. “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 ZT’s Technical Director Trevor Dean. “Imagine the
impact of grammage reduction on this over 200 billion m2 market!”. This figure comes from
2013 and is expected to keep growing in the years to come.
The Schwedt location “will allow ZT to be part of the pulp and paper ecosystem” continues
Richard Hurding, “because we will be operating alongside the EMFOS GmbH (European
Moulded Fibre Operation Services) independent packaging R&D Centre and are situated in
between the two Leipa Paper facilities, which combined form the biggest paper and packaging
production site in Germany”. ZT will continue to offer tailor-made developments to its clients
both with cellulose and ligno-cellulosic materials.
The throughput with OCC has now reached 1,5 tonnes per day thanks to the latest process
developments patented in summer 2016 and this therefore allows ZT to transform waste carton
board into high quality fibres for reinforcement and binder applications. Sample quantities are
available for testing and pre-industrial quantities can be supplied.
The same type of throughput can be reached with many agro-materials and agro-wastes,
giving growers the possibility to turn a waste disposal cost into a potential revenue while
contributing to circular economy principles. This is particularly well illustrated by the partnership
ZT has with bio-packaging company Bio-Lutions GmbH ( www.bio-lutions.com ).
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