Recycling or replacing chemicals is essential to restarting production of textile fibre from timber in a region where the pulp industry's image was also tarnished by heavy pollution. It now uses "closed loop" production that stops chemicals seeping out.
Pulp makers in Nordic countries are developing clean ways to turn birch and pine trees into clothes or sofa covers to help revive their industry#
Carbon disulfide is the main polluter of viscose production. Swedish Research institute Innventia's Fredrik Aldaeus, who is fine-tuning a method to make pulp that dissolves more easily with reduced or zero carbon disulfide, said a modified viscose fiber plant could be up and running within five years.
The main alternative textile fibre from timber pulp is lyocell which was first developed in the 1970s and has a cleaner manufacturing method than viscose. It has been marketed by Austria's Lenzing as Tencel since the 1990s.
Nordic researchers are trying to develop something similar. Herbert Sixta, who used to work at Lenzing, has led development at Aalto and Helsinki universities of a new lyocell-type fiber.
"In three to four years we should be able to show if it's commercially viable provided that we get the necessary financial support," he said. (SH)
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