DOE Awards $2.2 Million for Energy-Efficient Pulp and Paper Production

December 20, 2005

DOE awarded $2.2 million in research and development grants on December 20th for projects to save energy in the pulp and paper industry. The research will focus on removing water from pulp in the paper making process and determining the technical and commercial feasibility of next-generation manufacturing concepts.

DOE awarded about $2 million to Voith Paper in Wisconsin to design and build a new press technology to reduce energy use for paper drying by 30 percent; about $100,000 to North Carolina State University to define a next-generation pulping process to achieve higher yields and reduced energy consumption; and about $100,000 to Georgia Tech Research Corporation to examine new techniques for eliminating energy-intensive lime kilns from the pulping process. Lime kilns are used to recover and reuse calcium carbonate, a product of the pulping process. The recipients will provide a total of $2.1 million in cost sharing toward the three projects. See the DOE press release and DOE's Forest Products Industry of the Future Web page.