SUNPAP · Scale-Up Nanoparticles in Modern Papermaking

Past years have made the radical change of the European paper industry evident to everyone. To accelerate growth, the industry has to beat the product commoditization and renew its product base with value-added products. Energy saving is not just part of the environmental agenda, it has become the most crucial topic for the competitiveness of European paper industry. In order to maintain the advantage, the development of technologically advanced manufacturing processes is a must, along with reduced specific energy consumption. Nanocellulose is the most promising nano-material for wide-variety applications in papermaking, today only prepared and applied in lab-scale. SUNPAP addresses the enhancement of European paper industry competitiveness by means of nanofibrillouscellulose (NFC) based processes. SUNPAP proposes a program based on an integrated and complementary approach for: a) scaling up efficient and innovative production routes to deliver nanofibrillous cellulose (NFC) as functional additive for industrial processes and innovative added value products; b) innovating the papermaking processes by the introduction of NFC additive; c) assessing impacts of nanotechnologies on consumer and occupational safety, public health in general and environment, and enhancing the related European foreground d) demonstrating the economic, environment and social sustainability of the innovative papermaking processes and products and therefore, e) successfully transferring the nanotechnology innovation to the paper value chain. Through demonstrations of the processes, the project will deliver new extremely light-weight and multifunctional products for a wide range of end-uses in the graphical and packaging paper industries. Economical and sustainability assessments in the project cover the whole value chain. However, the targeted advantages are not possible without dramatically changing the total value chain, encompassing it from the pulp to the end of life-cycle of the product