The sustainable fibre company Spinnova has successfully completed building its new pilot factory line in Jyväskylä, Finland. The pilot is an important step on Spinnova’s journey towards large volume commercial production.

The industrial scale line was built over this fall, and the project was completed last week, on schedule in only 3.5 months. Ramping up the line will take the first quarter of 2019. The maximum capacity of the pilot line is 100-400 tons per annum.

Scaling its fibre technology innovation to a large industrial pilot scale is a major milestone for the company, founded four years ago. “I couldn’t be prouder of our team and contractors for successfully carrying out this massive project so fast. This is a greenfield factory in every way imaginable, and yet with a genius idea, careful planning and meticulous implementation, everything has gone as planned,” commented Spinnova’s CEO Janne Poranen.

Spinnova is now looking for committed commercial partners to run product development trials during next year, when there will be enough fibre for testing on real fabrics, creating prototype products.

Once Spinnova has proof of concept in the pilot factory, the technology will be multipliable and licensable. “This fully correlates with our vision of scaling the sustainable fibre production into big commercial volumes in the future for maximum environmental impact,” said Poranen.

The technology now piloted is suitable not only for the wood-based fibre production, but also to the other potential bio-based raw materials Spinnova is considering. Spinnova’s raw material commitment is to only use FSC-certified wood or waste streams, processed with 0% harmful chemicals.

Spinnova is a Finnish wood fibre company that develops ecological technology for manufacturing pulp-based textile fibre. Spinnova’s patented technology is said to save water, energy and chemicals, making wood-based textile fibre significantly more ecological than cotton or the current man-made fibres. Spinnova’s objective is to globally commercialise pulp-based textile fibre. Based in Jyväskylä, Central Finland, Spinnova employs 10 experts.

www.spinnova.fi