Above and Beyond – Meeting Smurfit Kappa’s Environmental and Sustainability Goals

The mill is also firmly focused on sustainability and environmental regulations as the site is situated close to the city of Linz in Austria, the country’s third largest city, as well as operating in an urban area in the town of Nettingsdorf. “Environmental regulations are very tight here,” continues Leitgeb. “Even more so than normally found in the pulp and paper industry. Austria prides itself on being first-in-class when it comes to protection of the environment. Emissions and odorous gases in particular are closely regulated, especially at Nettingsdorf as we operate right in the town.”   

As the environmental limitations in Austria have grown tighter, as well as operating with some ageing equipment, Smurfit Kappa decided to implement the Future Energy Project at the mill to address not only the environmental concerns, but also to improve energy and production efficiencies. “The last major investment at the mill in the recovery boiler area was some time ago,” says Leitgeb. “With the Future Energy Project, we wanted to install the very latest in technology to maximize efficiencies as well as reach our environmental goals.”

As part of its investment at the mill, Smurfit Kappa chose ANDRITZ to supply a new HERB recovery boiler and Mechanical Vapor Recompression (MVR) plant to enhance its implementation of sustainability initiatives as well as increase efficiency and profitability. “We chose ANDRITZ as we have a long-term history of working together at this mill and we were confident in the technology and expert know-how it could provide for a project of this scale. When it came to the sales phase of this project ANDRITZ experts were extremely flexible and easy to work with. They understood exactly what we needed from the start.” 

Henrik Wikstedt, Vice president, Recovery Boilers, ANDRITZ, says. “When the project was first being talked about, the important factors were that Smurfit Kappa needed high energy efficiency and low emissions for the recovery boiler and significantly lower steam use for evaporation. The MVR process is extremely energy effective vs. multiple effect evaporation plants.

“ANDRITZ had already been involved quite heavily at the mill in the recovery boiler and evaporation areas, so we already had a lot of knowledge about the details of the operation. We were ready to help the customer as and when they needed it. Also, we were very familiar with regulations and standards, meaning the customer could be confident that the project could go ahead with ANDRITZ strictly adhering to any specific requirements. And in this case, the standards were set very high by Smurfit Kappa.”    

OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW – IN JUST ONE DAY   

Contracts were signed in the spring of 2018 and the project commenced with the delivery of the pre-evaporation units. The installation of the units was completed by November 2018 and commissioning and take-over was achieved in April 2019. The recovery boiler project proceeded immediately after the installation of the pre-evaporation plant, the hydrotest was completed by late December 2019, with take-over taking place at the end of July 2020.

“This was an extremely challenging project for a number of reasons,” says Wikstedt. “The mill layout was really tight, with the recovery boiler being constructed on the site of the former lime kiln. There were also challenges with the pre-evaporation unit which involved a complex layout in an extremely narrow place.

“Added to this were Austrian rules relating to the use of labor and then of course there was Covid-19, which came along right in the middle of the main part of the project.”

Despite all the challenges, the project started on time. The new recovery boiler took over from the old one and was running at nominal capacity after just one day. “This project was carried out on another level, especially when it came to safety,” says Leitgeb. “And the start-up was brilliant. The project manager and team from ANDRITZ were completely focused and always pushing to make sure all requirements were met, and the timeline was followed.

“We stopped the mill for one day and the next day we had full production. There was such a fast ramp up after the start-up, I could even say the recovery boiler was outperforming. We did all this during normal operation, it really was a case of out with the old and in with the new and up and running again – in just one day.”

“We were very pleased, the commissioning went well and the start-up and ramp-up to full production went exceedingly well.” adds Wikstedt.

Leitgeb comments that now all capacity numbers agreed on with ANDRITZ have been fulfilled, he says, “The expectations were really high with this project and the senior management at Smurfit Kappa have followed progress very closely. The recovery boiler is now running smoothly 99% of the time with the major difference being that it’s not a bottleneck anymore.

“When it comes to emissions we are outperforming, the energy efficiency is brilliant and the chemical recovery is much better than before. All in all our expectations have been met, despite the challenges.”