API announces first commercial implementation of GreenBox+ technology

Following Cascades' announcement of major investments in a biorefinery project at its Norampac-Cabano facility, biorefinery technology developer American Process (API) has implemented its GreenBox+ technology in this project.

Cascades works to recover recyclable materials and manufacture green packaging products and tissue paper. The GreenBox+ thermomechanical process solution with hemicellulose hydrolysis and extraction was developed using a staged and systematic collaborative development approach including full-scale trials.

The process is currently under construction in collaboration with leading equipment supplier and API partner Valmet. GreenBox+ technology is a variation of API's technologies, which also include GreenPower+, GreenPower++ and GreenPower3+. These green technologies have various applications in the renewable materials and fuels fields – ranging from corrugated pulp mills to pulp mill biomass boilers to second generation ethanol production from cane.

The Cascades project – for a total investment of $26 million (€23 million) – represents a major advance in biorefinery development in Canada and has been supported by the Canadian federal and provincial governments. The new process will be implemented in retrofit to the existing Cabano mill.

Through the implementation of GreenBox+ technology, the Cabano mill will replace its existing sodium carbonate-based chemical process, reducing its environmental footprint and realising cost savings in terms of reduced energy consumption.

'GreenPower+ pretreatments are robust, using thermomechanical configurations, conventional pulp and paper equipment and API's intellectual property, to create value-added products from the different fractions of biomass. At the Cabano facility, the value added products are hemicellulosic sugars for downstream conversion and corrugating medium. Our future GreenPower+ project configurations will include the production of ethanol, building on GreenPower+ pretreatments and the technology demonstrated at the Alpena Biorefinery in Michigan,' says Theodora Retsina, the CEO of API.