Netherlands - Paper & packaging

Type of grass:

Nature and roadside grasses

Process:

Pre-treatment, digester and fermentation technologies

Products:

Packaging and high-quality paper

The Dutch demo site develops a process to extract fibres from roadside and nature grass to produce high-quality packaging and paper.

The Dutch demo has developed a process to produce grass cellulose fibers that can substitute wood cellulose in the production of paper and cartons.

It brings a new raw material for paper production, creates more added value to low quality (herbaceous) grass, supports increase of sustainable paper production and through the development of a cleaning technology for polluted grass makes it possible to use also roadside grass an input material.

The fiber production technology must be customized to local situations concerning scale and circumstances. The technology can also be adapted to process other types of lignocellulose biomass.

The DEMO gives more value to nature and roadside grass, which is normally left to decay, or processed into compost, whereas it can also be used in locally sourced packaging and papers. The grass fibres are a valuable local product, costing less water in the process and overall needing less transportation movements.