Towards Sawdust Products Ecosystem? Three Utilization Process Cases From Finland

Abstract

There is a huge demand to utilize renewal side flows of different production processes to substitute existing fossil-based products or to develop and produce totally new products to the market. One underutilized side product is sawdust. Sawdust is very interesting as a raw material because of it´s structure, chemical components and availability globally. The objective of this paper is to analyze huge processing possibilities of sawdust. Three process concepts, which are in different development phases, are used as examples to illustrate the large variation of products. Production processes and novel products are challenging existing value chains in this business, which traditionally has been business interactions between mechanical wood processing and energy, because sawdust has mostly been seen as solid, renewal fuel. The value capture from sawdust enables novel value chains to many businesses like chemicals, food ingredients and cosmetics. This paper discusses about the transition from cluster to cluster business into sawdust ecosystem. The cases are evaluated based on current literature, bibliographic, patent searches and technology readiness level. The findings show, that sawdust processing business already fulfill the criteria for ecosystem.