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Spinnova developing wood-based textile yarns

A Finnish company is working to bring to industrial scale a process that creates yarn from wood fibre using a wet spinning technique. Spinnova Ltd., a research and product development company, is the latest spin-off of VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd.  Spinnova is developing fibre to yarn (F2Y) technology which is totally different from traditional textile yarn production. F2Y technology uses no dissolution chemicals to dissolve wood fibre to a polymer level and regenerate cellulosic filaments. Instead the technology allows the production of novel, low cost and environmentally friendly textile yarns for filaments made directly from wood fibres through a wet spinning process.

According to the company, Spinnova’s technique is ideal for refining Finnish long fibre-length woods, such as that of pine and spruce species. It is the only technology which can be used to manufacture yarn directly from wood fibres without chemical processing.

Janne Poranen is CEO of the new company. He has had a long career in leadership positions in pulp and paper making research at VTT. The inventor behind the technique, Juha Salmela, is the company’s CTO.

Spinnova’s wood fibre yarn project won the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy’s biorefinery competition in February 2015.

Spinnova has attracted EUR 1.95 million in investments.