$100,000 Funding for Auburn University to Help Advance Papermaking and Research

Out with the old, in with the new!

Georgia-Pacific has contributed $100,000 to Auburn University to help fund a new state-of-the-art digester that will give engineering students the ability to test and improve a newly patented innovation in papermaking.

The current digester in the Alabama Center for Paper and Bioresource Engineering (AC-PABE) at AU is over 30 years old with many operational issues and no longer meets teaching and research needs. That’s why the AC-PABE contacted Georgia-Pacific, a long-time partner of AU and the pulp and paper program.

“We have developed a new additive for the kraft pulping process and have been granted a US patent for this technology,” said Dr. Zhihua Jiang, Auburn Pulp and Paper Foundation associate professor and director, AC-PABE. “The new digester will allow us to systematically evaluate the effect of the new additive under various operating conditions and optimize and make the technology ready for a commercial scale trial. It will also be used in our other research projects to further improve the pulping efficiency.”

A digester is a key piece of equipment used in the paper-making process. Pulp mill digesters use heat and chemicals to break down wood chips into pulp. The pulp is then further refined and processed to produce paper products.
more at: https://news.gp.com/2023/03/100-000-funding-for-auburn-university-to-help-advance-papermaking-and-research