Lignatherm's goal is to produce wood fiber insulation boards with the lowest possible environmental impact. The new plant is scheduled for completion in autumn 2025 and will process around 50,000 tons of wood chips per year into high-performance, resource-saving insulation boards.
At the heart of the plant is GEA's customized water treatment process, which is applied at three different critical points in the production process to ensure that more than 95% of the wastewater can be reused as steam – which also reduces the demand for fresh water by over 95%. The first stage of the process involves mechanical separation using GEA decanter centrifuges. Here, suspended solids are effectively removed from the wastewater stream. The second stage is thermal separation using a falling film evaporator. Here, the dissolved solids are concentrated for later disposal, while clear condensate is produced for feeding into the third stage. This stage is particularly resource-efficient thanks to the mechanical vapor compression (MVR) system, which operates the evaporator without fossil fuels at maximum energy efficiency. This system achieves a coefficient of performance (COP) of more than 25. This is at least five times higher than other heating options such as heat pumps or gas boilers. The third stage consists of a GEA steam reformer. This stage ensures complete recirculation of the water recycling system by collecting the wastewater in a loop where it is converted into process steam, so that no steam needs to be generated otherwise.
"Our innovative three-stage process not only meets Lignatherm's ambitious environmental goals, it exceeds them. It shows what is possible when technology and sustainability go hand in hand," said Roland Moser, Evaporation Sales & Process Manager at GEA.
