This is said to be a major milestone in the establishment of the first of its kind commercial scale textile recycling plant in the world. Renewcell’s new Ortviken plant is scheduled to begin operations in the first half of 2022.
The value of the order is around €25 million.
Through its patented process, Renewcell is able to upcycle cellulosic textile waste, such as cotton and viscose clothes, transforming it into a dissolving pulp product called Circulose, produced from 100% recycled textiles. In 2018 Renewcell opened a demonstration plant in Kristinehamn, Sweden, which can produce up to 4,500 tonnes of Circulose per year. The new Ortviken plant will have a capacity of 60,000 tonnes per year with a possibility to increase the capacity in the future.
Valmet will supply process equipment for stock preparation, bleaching and drying commonly used in large scale state-of-the-art dissolving pulp plants tailored for this project. Valmet’s delivery includes machine equipment installation, commissioning and technical support.
The pulp drying and baling part is second-hand equipment originally delivered by Valmet to another customer and now being dismantled in France and shipped to Sweden with needed technical support and installation from Valmet at Renewcell site.
“By replacing virgin textile fibres like cotton with fibres produced from Circulose, fashion brands can reduce the climate and environmental impact caused by raw material extraction and fashion waste generation significantly,” says Patrik Lundström, CEO of Renewcell.
“This project is an excellent example of how we can utilize Valmet’s wide expertise in bio, pulp and paper technology in textile recycling. In a project like this Valmet is not only a technology provider, but this is a joint journey. During the past year we have worked together to fine-tune the technology for textile recycling. We have utilized Valmet’s pilot machines at our Swedish and Finnish R&D centres to do test runs in turning recycled textile raw material into dissolving pulp sheets,” explains Rickard Andersson, vice president, fibre processing business unit, Valmet.