CATALYTIC CLEANUP AT THE PULP MILL

Abstract

ALCHEMISTS ARE GOING TO turn green with envy Turning matter—any kind of matter—into gold is quite a feat. But turning garbage into gold? That's a real trick. Okay, the gold isn't really gold. But the garbage is honest-to-goodness stinky garbage. Researchers at Lehigh University and Georgia-Pacific Corp. have developed a new catalytic process that converts waste streams from pulp and paper mills into valuable products. Not only does the technology provide the U.S. paper industry with a new and efficient option for complying with recently enacted environmental legislation, it enables them to do so at a profit. At more than 150 pulp mills in the U.S., and many more abroad, wood is converted into pulp for papermaking through kraft processing—high-temperature and high-pressure procedures in which wood chips are digested in caustic sulfurous solutions. The process, which has been used for over a century, generates large quantities of unwanted methanol and mercaptans. For ...