CARGILL ON STARCH: THE UNSUNG STAR IN PAPER & BOARD PRODUCTION
JUHA KOPONEN, CARGILL R&D CATEGORY LEADER
Starch is a bio-based product that can be obtained from several sources with corn,
wheat and potato being the main ones. It features as the fourth most present raw material in papermaking (after water, fiber, and fillers) and is used in all the phases of the process from wet-end to spray, surface sizing and coating.
For wet-end, cationic starches are the best solutions to help improve the formation, drainage, retention and paper strength, and allow for the increase of the recycled fiber content in the final sheet, without quality loss.
Native starches are traditional solutions for spraying enhancing the internal bond when wet-end conductivity is too high and when size-film press is not available. They also improve the ply bond strength of thick board qualities of 300g/m² and more.
For surface sizing, native starches are standard starch solutions with low cationic grades (like Cargill’s C☆iSize™) considered as advanced solutions and proven to increase paper surface strength, minimize stock losses, reduce effluent loads, replacing expensive cellulose fiber by filler and demonstrating great ink-jet printability.
In paper coating, native starches with enzymatic conversion are conventional solutions. Modified starches (most commonly known as “dextrins”) are traditional solutions, providing additional benefits such as low retrogradation tendency, better stability under running conditions and higher solids coating colors.
More advanced starch-solutions (like Cargill’s C☆iFilm™), have higher binding power than traditional solutions and allow for more than 70% latex replacement in a coating formulation. Cargill’s latest development in paper coating is a cold soluble polymer (C☆iCoat™) tailored to be easily dispersible, even at high dosage rates such as 100kg per minute, does not require cooking and allows even higher replacement % of latex and thickeners.
According to the “EU Starch Industry Decarbonization Roadmap” (Starch Europe),
the use of starch in paper & board may contribute to achieving a climate neutral Europe. Specifically, the increased recycling of paper/ cardboard and replacement of traditional plastic with paper may be difficult without the use of starch and starch-based solutions. They are also valid alternatives to fossil-based ingredients (e.g., latex, polyvinyl alcohol etc.) used for today’s paper production.
Back in October 2022, the European starch industry announced an aspiration to lower greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) (Scope 1 and 2) by 25% per ton of starch produced, between 2019 and 2030. Cargill is targeting a reduction of GHG at our operations (Scope 1 and 2) of 10% by 2025 and 30% per ton of product sold by 2030 in our supply
chain (Scope 3). But we are not stopping there. We are aware that most of the environmental footprint of starch occurs at farm level (77%, according to Starch Europe’s recent LCA study). To help mitigate climate change, regenerate soil, and improve water use, we have developed a voluntary, market-based regenerative
agriculture program (Cargill RegenConnect®) to help farmers improve soil health and decarbonize the agricultural supply chain.
Starch is an unsung star in paper & board production, with on-trend solutions performing throughout the paper trail. At Cargill, we’re focusing on improving the sustainability profile of our production process and supply chain, as we move forward together on a European decarbonization roadmap.
