Kemira : The paper industry is Kemira's partner in growth – Fennobind as a part of the development

​Customer needs, sustainability and continuous learning shape Kemira's product development. Fennobind is a step towards more cost-efficient paper production.

The customer's wishes on product development, quality improvement and cost savings are the most important bases of product development for Kemira. The company constantly develops new products and applications, whose objective is to enhance customer's business. Commitment to the paper industry means that Kemira actively provides new applications to the global needs of paper production.

Fennobind, a new type of binder used in coating of paper and board, was also developed as a collaboration project together with a customer. Fennobind enables paper and board makers to gain clear cost savings and develop end product properties, such as printability. Fennobind also enables the optimization of the customer's coating mixes on a wider scale: dry content, pigment ratios, and other extra components of the coating color can be completely re-optimised.

"The goal was to reduce the use of oil-based raw materials and to reduce the total coating costs. Fennobind has now been in machine scale use for some four years, and it has proven to fulfil customers' requirements," says Pasi Jussila, Marketing Manager.

Fennobind is suitable for all coating applications and all paper and board grades. Compared to traditional latexes, it gives a clearly better coating coverage. A more even coating structure improves both printability and visual qualities of the end product.

"Depending on the coating application, traditional synthetic binders can be replaced with Fennobind either partly or wholly," Jussila explains.

The entire product development process has been based on the customer's greater ability to optimize costs. Fennobind changes coating structure in a way that has also clearly decreased the need for drying energy in coating. In most cases the use of Fennobind enables reducing drying energy costs by 20-30 per cent.

The clearly reduced use of oil-based raw materials also shows in the carbon footprint of the customer's end product. The smaller quantity of volatile organic compounds has been received with great interest in the packaging and board industry.

Fennobind has an important role in Kemira's growth objectives. Its production capacity has been and will be increased both in Europe and elsewhere. In addition to financial investments, Kemira also invests in skilled people, who work with this product.

"Our sales staff works in close co-operation with our application experts worldwide. Our experts regularly train the sales staff, and every day we learn more together. Kemira wants to ensure that the best new products are available to our customers as quickly as possible. In this way, our product development leads to new innovations in co-operation with the customer," Jussila notes.