Making a sustainable impact: Biomass-balanced wet strength additives

Think increasing sustainability and switching from conventional, fossil-based chemistries to renewable alternatives means compromising on quality or performance? Think again. Kemira’s biomass-balanced products for papermaking, with wet strength additives as one of the latest additions to our portfolio, check all the boxes. This approach allows for concrete steps toward reducing reliance on fossil-based raw materials and combines high performance with reduced environmental impact.

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Article takeaways

Kemira’s biomass-balanced wet strength additives are a true drop-in solution that maintains high performance while reducing the use of fossil raw materials – no process changes or efficiency compromise.

Market response has been strong, with customers quickly embracing these solutions that help reduce environmental impact and maintain proven performance in tissue manufacturing.

Kemira’s biomass-balanced products contain at minimum 50% renewable carbon through mass balance attribition, originating from renewable feedstocks and certified by ISCC PLUS standard.

With the biomass balance approach, Kemira can help customers lower their upstream Scope 3 emissions and ultimately impact the product carbon footprint of their end product or those of their customers.

Kemira has embraced the biomass balance approach as a way to reduce the use of fossil carbon across the papermaking value chain without jeopardizing operational efficiency. Biomass-balanced wet strength additives, launched at the beginning of 2024, offer a more sustainable alternative to conventional, fossil-based strength resins. These additives are crucial in producing moisture-resistant paper, board, and tissue grades and molded fiber products.

“Our customers are seeking more sustainable solutions for different applications within the papermaking process, but don’t want to and cannot compromise their processes’ runnability or production efficiency,” acknowledges Maria Sederholm, Director of Global Product Line for Polymers in Pulp & Paper at Kemira.

Biomass-balanced products tick both boxes. They are genuine drop-in solutions with immediate sustainability benefits. The biomass-balanced wet strength resins maintain the same high quality and performance as standard products, while effectively reducing the use of fossil raw materials in the value chain.

“The market response to our biomass-balanced wet strength additives has been particularly encouraging,” Sederholm notes. “Customers have quickly embraced these solutions, which clearly demonstrates that they recognize the value and that we’re meeting a real need: offering solutions that deliver both sustainability benefits and the proven performance our customers rely on.”

Kemira’s biomass-balanced products contain at minimum 50% renewable carbon through mass balance attribution. In Kemira FennoStrength™ wet strength additives, the renewable carbon content can be increased to 75% or even close to 100%, depending on the product.

Kemira is introducing a diverse range of other biomass-balanced alternatives to the market, e.g. for surface sizing and barrier applications, in addition to the wet strength additives and biomass balanced polymers for retention and drainage and water treatment applications, which were launched already in 2021. “Adopting this principle broadly supports our long-term goal to build a leading portfolio of renewable solutions to help our customers in their sustainability transformation,” Maria states.

Adopting this principle broadly supports our long-term goal to build a leading portfolio of renewable solutions to help our customers in their sustainability transformation

Mass balance approach explained

“The biomass balance concept might seem complex, but it’s similar to the principle behind green electricity,” assures Maria. Simply put, it means that a major share of the traditional fossil-based raw materials is replaced by renewable mass-balanced feedstocks at the very beginning of the production value chain. These certified renewable feedstocks – such as biogas or agricultural waste – contain renewable carbon and thus increase the overall renewable content in the value chain and contribute to fossil carbon reduction.

An independent third-party certification guarantees full traceability; ensuring that the correct amount of renewable raw materials is used and that these raw materials come from verified sustainable sources. Kemira’s biomass balanced products and their manufacturing sites are certified according to ISCC (International Sustainability and Carbon Certification) PLUS standards.

“This is a value chain effort focused on driving environmental impact,” Maria emphasizes. “By replacing fossil resources with renewable and circular materials within the existing production processes, we can collectively take an effective climate action and contribute to the shift away from fossil carbon.”

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Helping customers reach sustainability targets

More and more companies are committed to the Science Based targets initiative (SBTi) and align their sustainability efforts with the latest climate science to reduce emissions and meet the goals of the Paris Agreement. This has increased attention to Scope 3 emissions, which encompass all the indirect greenhouse gas emissions throughout a company’s value chain, both upstream and downstream.

“The biomass balance approach has a role in this effort. By reducing fossil carbon in our products through the certified mass balance principle, we can help our customers lower their upstream scope 3 emissions and ultimately impact the product carbon footprint of their end products or those of their customers, depending on the application,” describes Maria.

Biomass balanced polymers – Speeding up the renewable shift

The urgency to shift from conventional, fossil-based chemistries to solutions derived from renewable feedstocks is becoming increasingly evident, driven by the need to mitigate climate change. To take immediate action and reduce the use of fossil carbon across the value chain, Kemira is utilizing the biomass balance approach to create a more sustainable future for customers and society.

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