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Nippon Paper Chemicals Grants Domsjö Fabriker AB License to Use Patented Technology |
| October 24, 2006 Nippon Paper Group Nippon Paper Chemicals Co., Ltd. |
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The patent in question concerns technology for manufacturing a concrete additive; it is considered to be important for the success of Domsjö’s strategy for expanding sales of high value-added lignin products in America. The US market for such products is currently of the order of 90,000 tons (solid content equivalent); the Japanese market is estimated to be less than half that size, at approximately 40,000 tons. Most of NPC’s business is in the Japanese market and so it was determined that there is potential for NPC working with Domsjö, for their mutual benefit. NPC considers this contract to be highly significant in that it reflects the high value put on its patents applied for overseas. In future, making the most of its original technologies, NPC will actively pursue the strategic development of all its business interests overseas. Domsjö Fabriker ABLocated in central Sweden, in Örnsköldsvik on the Gulf of Bothnia, Domsjö has been in business for over a century. It was part of the MoDo Group until 2000. Now an independent company, it operates one of the world’ major sulfite pulp mills. URL:http://www.domsjoe.comLignin: A closer lookNPC develops and manufactures lignin products at two sites in Japan. One is Gotsu Works, the country’s only sulfite pulp mill. Here they aim to fully use the components of timber, the mill’s raw material: cellulose (pulp), lignin and hemicellulose. When producing pulp, the wood is first boiled to separate the cellulose and lignin. Lignin is water-insoluble, but it undergoes chemical conversion to a soluble product called lignin sulfonic acid; this is now easy to separate through washing. Lignin sulfonic acid is a naturally occurring macromolecule. NPC processes it using advanced conversion technologies and markets the resulting products for a wide range of applications – for use in car batteries, and as a concrete additive and dye dispersing agent, for example. The second site is NPC’s Iwakuni Works with Research & Development Laboratory, where expertise accumulated over many years is employed to manufacture an additive for high-performance synthetic concrete offering the high strength required for today’s high-rise buildings. |
Nippon Paper Chemicals has reached an agreement with the Swedish company Domsjö Fabriker AB, granting the latter a license for use of a lignin product manufacturing technology covered by an NPC patent; NPC will also be providing related technical know-how. The contract was signed at the Domsjö Head Office this month.
