Overview of Biotechnology in the Pulp and Paper Industry, 2000 Pulping / Process & Product Quality Conference Proceedings

K.-E. I. Eriksson--The first oil crisis during the 70-ties turned the interest towards the renewable resources for energy. Effort to produce ethanol for liquid fuel from lignocellulosic materials is one such example. The time for this oil crisis coincided with the cradle period for biotechnology. This new technique was successfully implemented in areas such as medicin and pharmacology for production of expensive products at a small scale. However, it was much more difficult to implement in bulk industries such as the pulp and paper industry, producing cheap products at a huge scale. Nevertheless, attempts for development of biotechnology also for this industry were made already at this time. One such example is biopulping, another is the use of fermentors with a fungus, "kidneys", for closing of the white-water systems in mechanical pulp and paper mills. Success at this early time for development of such processes was almost impossible. Not enough was known about the employed microorganisms, mainly white-rot fungi, much less about their enzymes - the tools they use for degradation of wood and wood components. Also, at that time it was impossible to produce potentially useful enzymes at prices that came even close to economically competible prices. This has now changed. Through the concerted efforts by researchers in many laboratories in many countries we now know, at great depth, the mechanisms for how microorganisms and their enzymes degrade cellullose, hemicelluloses and lignin. Efficient enzymes for use in pulp and paper production processes can now be produced at costs we could only dream of 10 years ago. This progress has made it possible to use enzymes for bleaching of wood pulp, for deinking of recycled papers, and for preventing pitch problems in pulp and paper mill systems. In the presentation an overview will be given of results obtained in already implemented biotechnology based processes and "state of the art" of processes close to implementation such as bipopulping, use of lignin degrading enzymes for bleaching and enzymes for fiber modifications will be described. An investigation of other pulp and paper processes in which biotechnology can be used will also be presented.