A Swedish start-up is turning paper back into wood- developing PaperShell, a new engineered wood product that could lead the way in accelerating the push to replace carbon-intensive aluminium, plastic, and fibre composites (GFRP) used in furniture, construction, electronics and automotive parts – including the award-winning Polestar 2.0, which is using the material to develop panels, load-bearing materials and class A surfaces for its next generation of EV’s.
The new material – stronger than wood – is manufactured using a process known as intensive compression moulding – combining paper fibres, bio-risen, and hemicellulose (added back into the material), with the Papershell then cut into pieces and pressed under a large steel machine for shaping and timing. In addition, any waste generated in manufacturing is turned into biochar, creating the energy source needed for production.
“[As a] tree grows up, it takes the carbon from the atmosphere, and we reduce that tree to paper with a single life,” according to PaperShell cofounder and CEO Anders Breitholtz, who spoke to Metropolis today. “We should be able to do something much more advanced around this.”
With a background in design and tech, Breitholtz sought to unlock solutions for steering the design industry toward a circular economy: “Whether it’s fashion, automotive, sports, whatever, there’s always a hunt for new materials,” he said. “But the reality is that there aren’t many materials viable in an industrial context.” Breitholtz then teamed up with cofounder Mathieu Gustafsson to begin tests on the new product in 2018.
“You get a component which is 100% biogenic. There’s no fossil carbon inside. It’s just natural materials,” according to Breitholtz, who said PaperShell’s lightweight, durable, and moldable qualities also make it an ideal material for building facades. “By pressing it really, really hard, that’s when you have the paper sheets sort of merge together and become a homogeneous material.”
Wood Central understands that testing is now underway to extensively use the Papershell product in architecture, construction, and recycling communities – with 50 automotive OEMs, including Polestar, also expressing interest in using the material for interior and exterior applications. PaperShell has even entered the sporting goods market through a bindless snowboard known as Papersurf, with Breitholtz and content designer Johan Höög pressing the material into a vinyl record to divine its sound: “The interest in our materials comes from all over,” Breitholtz said. “What we have learned is that there’s such a diverse use for this.”
- To learn why the world’s largest auto companies are now beating on new types of wood and forest products to drive the next generation of electric vehicles, click here for Wood Central’s special feature.
