Optimized production at full speed

EcoPaper S.A. manufactures corrugated board, using 100 percent paper and board waste products as their raw material. Their PM 1 at Zarnesti mill was suffering from a poorly performing film sizer that had been used as pond sizer due to the problems. The mill decided to order a process performance study from Valmet to solve the problem.

“We had a lot of problems with our film sizer, and we needed to run it as a pond sizer so we could only run at the maximum 500 meters a minute machine speed. We really needed a solution, and I’m happy Valmet could offer it to us,” explains Ion Ciolan, Project Manager at EcoPaper. Valmet carried out the study and recommended new composite applicator beams for the sizer. “The study results were clear, and when we saw the beams in Valmet’s assembly room in Järvenpää, that was the final step in the decision. We wanted Valmet’s state-of-the-art composite sizer beams.” 

Tools to optimize production

The new film sizer application beams were installed and started up in October 2017, and now the sizer works perfectly. They can now run the machine at the full 1200 meters a minute speed. The benefit of the beams is that now they do not have deflection caused by heat expansion, meaning there are no profile defects. Ion Ciolan describes the benefits they have noticed: “We have saved a lot of energy now that there is no excess water to evaporate in the drying section. The runnability in sizer area has improved significantly, and another major benefit is that we can now use dyes in the sizer to produce the colored board our customers want. This really gives us good tools for optimizing our production.”

”We are proud of the rebuilt sizer”

Ion Ciolan is convinced by Valmet’s way of working: “Valmet has demonstrated outstanding performance throughout this project. It was our first experience with Valmet, but it definitely won’t be the last. We have now entrusted Valmet with sizer consumables, like Valmet Sizer Roll Cover SH covers for our sizer rolls, sizer rods and sealing blades. At the moment, we have an ongoing winder upgrade project to get the winder to perform in sync with our board machine, which Valmet is also doing.” EcoPaper Zarnesti PM 1 now produces liner and container board with a basis weight range of 80–170 g per square meter, a wire width of 5.4 m, and a full design speed of 1,200 meters a minute. We are not just happy with our rebuilt sizer – we are proud of it,” says Ciolan happily.