THUNDER BAY - A pilot project that will look into the commercialization of bio-chemicals harvested from wood products is officially underway at Resolute Forest Products Thunder Bay Pulp and Paper Mill, which researchers and industry leaders hope will show the successes seen in the labs can transfer to new economic opportunities for the industry.
The thermo-mechanical-pulp biorefinery plant was first announced last January as a pilot project involving FPInnovations and Resolute Forest Products. On Monday, the plant was officially commissioned at the pulp and paper mill in Thunder Bay.
“It’s no great secret that paper over the long term is not a growth industry,” said Remi Lalonde, senior vice president and chief financial officer with Resolute Forest Products. “We are trying to look for pathways to transfer the assets we have and make something new to make sure there is a long-term sustainable future for assets like this one.”
The TMP-Bio refinery process breaks down wood into elemental chemicals such as basic sugar and lignin, which can then be put back into the supply chain in the form of other products such as plastics, adhesives, or animal feed.
Stephane Renou, president and CEO of FPInnovations, said this process has already been seen in the lab, but the plant in Thunder Bay will demonstrate it at a commercial scale.
“The plant will help us look at those components, look at how they are when they are industry produced, so we can test them at mass,” he said. “You can always dream of producing something in a little test tube but that is purity, here what we do is test it at large scale, which is more realistic to the real product.”
Renou added nearly everything we touch that contains plastics or solid material could contain fiber, from chairs, tables, plastic products, even cars.
“You need facilities like this one to show it at a scale that it makes sense, then you can add a tone of material to put it somewhere else,” he said. “If you give them a test-tube they won’t try it, if I give them a ton of material that is part of the trick of pilot projects, to get it to the scale to enter the supply chain.”
This project is also beneficial to the forest industry as it could provide new and innovative ways to make use of existing assets.
“This is all about finding something else with the equipment we use to make paper,” Lalonde said.
The $23 million pilot project is funded in part by the federal government, which invested $5.8 million last year and an additional $2 million on Monday.
"It’s about diversifying the resource economy," said MP Don Rusnak. "As our tech economy is looking at artificial intelligence and other advances, here in Northwestern Ontario, we have a history in the resource sector and we are looking at diversifying that."
Resolute invested $5.5 million including in-kind site location and some of the equipment. Other investments were made by the Ontario Centre for Research and Innovation in the Bio-Economy, Natural Resources Canada, Thunder Bay CEDC, MNRF, and contributions from the Quebec Ministry of Forests, Wildlife and Parks, and the Nova Scotia Innovation Hub.
The pilot project is expected to take place over the next three to five years and has a capacity to treat 11 metric tons of biomass annually.
