At the beginning of 2015, Finland-based VTT Technical Research Centre established a research and development company named Spinnova Ltd. to explore fiber to yarn (F2Y) technology. Rather than using chemicals to dissolve the wood fibers to the polymer level, the F2Y technology uses a wet-spinning process to produce filament yarns directly from wood fibers. Spinnova reports the process is well-suited to long fiber-length woods such as pine and spruce. The venture has garnered 1.95 million euros ($2.2 million) in investments from a variety of sources, and the technology won Finland’s Ministry of Employment and the Economy’s biorefinery competition in February.
May/June 2015
