How Would You Utilize Remnant Wood Production Materials?
Bark, sawdust, ashes, hearwood cores, and cut-out parts of cross-laminated-timber (CLT) are produced as a side-stream of Stora Enso Wood Products. We are looking for partners with existing business models that can utilise these remnant wood production materials in a way that adds value.
Stora Enso’s wood products come in all shapes and sizes, to serve the needs of a growing wood building industry. Producing various wooden components does come with certain production side-streams: not all parts of the raw materials have a suitable end use, as they are currently regarded as waste or low-value material. Commonly called remnant products, Stora Enso’s aim is to find partners who can help increase the value of these materials by commercializing them through innovative products.
Remnant production side-streams can include materials such as tree bark, saw dust, and ashes. These materials, and other products like them, contain valuable components that can be extracted for use in other products. For example, pyrolysis can be used to convert the biomass into raw material for other production purposes.
Other products like peeled logs from veneer production or cut out materials from CLT (cross-laminated timber) can be used in many end-products made of wood. In veneer production, raw wood arrives at the processing plant to be peeled. The outermost layers of the tree trunk are removed and turned into veneer. However, there is no end use for the core of the log – in fact, most of the time these cores are turned into fence poles. Needless to say, this is not necessarily the best use for a valuable raw material.
CLT products have many end uses, but one of the largest remnant products with them come from large wall elements. When door and window spaces are cut into the CLT wall elements, the cutout material is often unutilized. We envision that these cut-out parts could be used as a raw material for innovative wooden products.
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