Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

The pulp and paper industry plays a key role in the Canadian economy and Canadian communities. Due to the numbers of large new, modern pulp and paper mills that are coming on-line in countries where fibre supply is large and manufacturing costs are significantly lower than in traditional paper-producing countries, the Canadian pulp and paper industry is facing a huge challenge. The Minister's Council Report of Forest Sector Competitiveness released on June 13, 2005 identified at least 12 forest industry mills at risk of closure in Ontario alone. Northern Ontario communities have already been battered by mill closures. Several thousand direct jobs have been lost over the past four years. Should all 12 at-risk mills close, entire communities in the north will be severely impacted with economic recovery next to impossible; 38,000 direct and indirect jobs will be lost; and $1 billion will be lost in tax revenues annually. As concluded in the PaperWeek International Reporter on Feb. 6, 2007, the Canadian pulp and paper industry must identify new value-added products in order to compete. Over a three-year period, we will closely work with our industrial partners, Bowater Canadian Forest Products Inc., The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and FPInnovations, Paprican (i) to determine the optimum conditions for lignin precipitation; (ii) to develop a novel technology for lignin oxidation, which would convert a renewable and sustainable resource that is presently treated mainly as a low value biomass energy product into value-added lignin products such as replacement for carbon black; and (iii) to identify the products resulting from the lignin oxidation. This project will constitute a response to the depletion of non-renewable fossil resources and will contribute to promote Canadian leadership in green chemistry and a bio-based economy. The findings gained from the proposed research would help the development of novel technologies for economically utilization of lignin and will greatly benefit the pulp and paper industry.