4 Things you should know about Sappi’s new Sugar Plant
The opening of the new Sugar Demo Plant at Sappi's Ngodwana Mill is good news for the Lowveld.
NGODWANA – Sappi is positioning itself at the forefront of creating new products by branching out to recover sugars from wood.
This new dawn for the company broke with the opening of the Valmet Sappi Sugar Demonstration Plant at Ngodwana Mill on April 5. It will enable the company to develop a process that will put biorenewable products on the market.
VIEW the opening of the Sugar Demo Plant
- The Ngodwana Mill has contributed more than R6,2 billion to the province’s economy over the past few years.
2. The aim is to develop a new process that can lead to the installation of a full-scale biochemical-producing plant at Ngodwana. The wood of bluegum trees will be used at the Sugar Demo Plant.
READ MORE about Sappi’s search for the perfect tree
3. There is more to the Ngodwana plant than merely cooking wood pulp and making paper. The lignins and hemicellulose can be broken down into sugars and acids. This will create a sugar stream for Sappi which can serve as raw material for a range of products.
4. Products that can be manufactured with these materials include plastic for bottles, sugars for artificial sweeteners like Xylitol, base products for cosmetics and glues as well as glycol, which is used to de-ice aircraft wings.
