Page 10 - Georgia Forestry - Summer 2018

“20 years from now, paper will be a thing of the past.”
— Dick Brass, Vice President of Technology Development, Microsoft (1999)
Nanocellulose Brings
Potential Advancements
to Supply Chain
Dr. Charles Herty would be impressed at how the scientists that have followed him in the pulp and paper field have carried on his fact-finding in the packaging industry.
The strides in research have been many, but here is one the founder of pulp and paper might take particular notice of. It gives even more use for the corrugated box made of Georgia pulpwood.
Nanocellulose is being tested as the liner for linerboard. For instance, take fish shipped by plastic container. The plastic container is necessary to insulate
from moisture and air. But scientists are testing how to coat a box with a thin layer of nanocellulose, which provides a barrier to air and moisture. Now look at the issue. If we can rid ourselves of the use of so much plastic in shipping — the kind that formed the giant island of discarded plastic in the Pacific Ocean — the container made of pulp wood is more
renewable with the aid of nanocellulose.
Here is the other application of the science Dr. Herty would be proud of. The printed electronics market is booming. Those barcodes on boxes
with radio frequency identification (RFID) need to be protected. The science is evolving so that nanocellulose can cover that barcode with a smooth, flexible and durable coating. The bar code, which is being used to not only track, but identify what is in a box can stand up to hazards.
MDIP, which is a scientific exchange based in Basel, Switzerland, is conducting research into paper substrates. It had this to say: “Using cellulose nanofibrils (CNF) as the strength additive in the inorganic composite structure, it is possible to surpass the properties of traditional paper substrates. It has been shown that this new pigment-cellulose nanofibril (PCN) substrate can contain up to 90 percent of inorganic fillers and, yet, remain mechanically stable and flexible.”
What that means is that engineering is going to make our boxes even more popular for packaging and shipping. It is cardboard over plastic, once again.
so it should be steady business for the 65-year-old landowner. Is Hopkins getting the price he wants that will help him reforest? No. But considering e-com- merce still represents only 5.5 percent of all U.S. retail sales — and that number is only climbing — he is still going to have some steady revenue.
“I would think the pulp mills that are in existence are running hard,” Hopkins said. Twenty years ago, there were doubts the mills would be running at all. The Digital Age was supposed to be doom for pulpwood and paper. In 1999, Dick Brass, Microsoft’s vice president of technology Development, told a publishing confer- ence in San Francisco that “20 years from
now, paper will be a thing of the past.” There was more doom predicted for paper with a push for biofuel plants in the state. As newspapers and magazines — those in print — were just starting their downward spiral, there was a belief that wood could be used for the new energy
source: ethanol and biofuel.
Bill Guthrie, the general manager at
DS Smith for Timber, Lumber and Tim- berlands, said the death of pulpwood has been greatly exaggerated.
“A few years ago, there was the argu- ment pulp and paper is dead, so let’s drag all these bioenergy plants here,” Guthrie said. “I argued with that aggressively.”
You only have to look at the DS Smith mill in Riceboro to see how alive and well pulp and paper are in Georgia. The mill was formerly the Interstate Resources mill, which was built in 1968. It is still humming along. The mill was part of a $920 million acquisition in August 2017 of 19 Interstate production sites by DS Smith as it sought to increase its footprint in the U.S.
The Riceboro mill is a thriving engine for the local economy. DS Smith churns 45-50 million board feet of fine lumber per year, but the centerpiece is the “Paper Machine,” a robust monolith of steel and technology that has turned pulp into paper for 50 years. DS Smith views itself as a packaging company, and the virgin linerboard that comes out of this mill could be used for one of those boxes that ends up on Joe Hopkins’ doorstep as part of the e-commerce boom.
Steve Fowler, the wood procurement manager for DS Smith in Riceboro, said the mill unloads wood from 150-170 trucks a day to supply the needs of the saw mill and paper (chip) mill. The paper mill produces rolls of brown paper that
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