Metsä Group – Carbon Capture Pilot

Metsä Group, a forest industry company, is investigating the capture of carbon dioxide from the pulp mill's flue gases. The tests of the pilot phase have been carried out, and at the moment the company is investigating the construction of a commercial facility on a demo scale.

Carbon capture is an existing technology, but it has only been studied to a limited extent in connection with the pulp mill's flue gases. At pilot phase, Metsä Group tested various process conditions that affect, among other things, energy consumption and the amount of carbon dioxide captured. The pilot period also provided information on the need for flue gas cleaning and the quality of the end product. Based on the test period, it seems that the technology also works well with the pulp mill's flue gases.

The pulp mill's carbon dioxide emissions are biogenic, their origin is in wood not in fossils. Carbon capture and utilisation has been recognised as a key technology among the EU's climate change mitigation efforts. As part of hydrogen economy, it would enable the development of new industry in Europe.

Potential future developments

Carbon capture has the potential to grow into a large market. Recovery can also play a major role in governments’ efforts to mitigate climate change.

Finland’s availability of affordable electricity and biogenic carbon dioxide creates favorable conditions for investment in the PtoX value chain, supporting the build‑out of a hydrogen economy.

Recovery investments are large and the market is underdeveloped. Value chains from raw material to finished products are also often new and complex, so close cooperation and understanding of industrial operations is required between actors. With its development activities, Metsä Group wants to contribute to the creation of a market. However, market development also depends on regulation at EU and national level, as well as investment support for the green transition. State aid for the green transition will play a key role in accelerating industrial investment.

Current contribution

Wood-based carbon dioxide is an almost completely untapped side stream of pulp mills so far. Carbon dioxide can be used as a high-volume raw material, for example, in the chemical and fuel industries, and thus it can replace the use of fossil raw materials. Carbon capture does not increase the use of wood in the pulp mill and does not reduce the efficiency of production. The climate impacts of recovery would be positive; when biogenic carbon dioxide replaces fossil as a raw material, a corresponding amount of fossil carbon dioxide is left out of the atmosphere.

Metsä Group’s goal is to use northern wood in a resource-efficient way and to utilise the side streams of production processes to an increasing extent so that the company processes increasingly valuable products from wood. Carbon capture is one example of this.

Recovery can open up opportunities for the new, significant chemical industry and accelerate the hydrogen economy, for example. Metsä Group estimates that hydrogen and wood-based carbon dioxide produced with renewable energy could be used, for example, to produce synthetic fuels as eMethane, eMethanol or eSAF or chemicals for further processing.