The paper and pulp industry is important in the Pine Tree State, so much so that about half of Maine’s toxic industrial pollution comes from this sector.
However, Energy News Network reported that a development at Worcester Polytechnic Institute could significantly reduce these emissions whilst maintaining economically beneficial jobs in place, as drying and processing facilities are often rely on dirty fuels for operations and generate much of the 1.1 million tonnes of carbon pollution from the paper and pulp industry, which contributes to global warming.
The key to the breakthrough is a laser system that Jamal Yagoobi, founding director of the institute’s Center for Advanced Drying Research, said will be “easy to adapt” to existing drying equipment on a commercial scale, once They will be ready to be marketed.
In November, Yagoobi said Energy News Network that his team had successfully tested laser paper drying technology on food products and that the next step was to study how lasers affect different materials to ensure they do not affect product quality.
“For paper, it is important to ensure that the tensile strength does not degrade. For food products, it is important to ensure that the color and sensory qualities do not degrade”, Yagoobi said.
While skeptics of this idea might imagine highly focused beams of light zapping the paper into oblivion, the laser system disperses the energy over a larger area to “evenly and gently dry the target material,” according to Energy News Network.
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“We are all excited about this technology: it is potentially a revolutionary technology,” Yagoobi said. said.
If realized at scale, the system will be another promising example of how green innovations bring new life to communities while reducing pollution associated with serious health complications such as cancer and millions of deaths annual premature babies. For example, federal investments in former coal communities, including West Virginia and Kentucky, create clean energy jobs and attract private investors to local economies.
“There’s often this old story of tensions between climate and jobs,” Evan Gillespie, co-founder of Industrious Labs. said Energy Information Network. “But what we’re trying to do is modernize these facilities and stabilize them so they last for decades to come.”
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According to the reportthe U.S. Department of Energy awarded WPI $2.75 million to develop its industrial drying technology for commercial use.
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