Investigating potential energy savings from raw materials variability attenuation: A case study in pulp and paper industry

The objective of this work is to scrutinize the impact of wood chips properties (WCP) variation on process variability in a thermo-mechanical pulping process in pulp and paper industry. The starting hypothesis states that by reducing WCP variation, process variability is mitigated that results in energy efficiency and product quality enhancements. Process data during two months of continuous operation of the process are analyzed and low variability periods are identified. The periods are then compared to the average of the process to characterize the correlation between WCP variation, energy efficiency, and product quality indexes.