Updated by "Forest Circular Economy" Editorial Board on May 22, 2025, 9:48 AM JST
Editorial Board, Forest Circular Economy
Forestcircularity-editor
We aim to realize "Vision 2050: Japan Shines, Forest Circular Economy" promoted by the Platinum Forest Industry Initiative. We will disseminate ideas and initiatives to promote biomass chemistry, realize wooden cities, and encourage innovation in the forestry industry in order to fully utilize forest resources to decarbonize, strengthen economic security, and create local communities.
On May 21, Oji Holdings held a ceremony to mark the completion of a pilot plant for the production of wood-derived sugar solution and ethanol, which was constructed on the premises of the Oji Paper Yonago Mill in Tottori Prefecture. The facility has a maximum annual production capacity of 3,000 tons of sugar liquid and 1,000 kiloliters of bioethanol, making it the largest-scale pilot plant of its kind in Japan. It is expected to attract a great deal of attention as a sustainable alternative to the production of sugar and ethanol, which has conventionally depended on petroleum and grains, using domestic woody biomass as raw material.
The pilot plant will produce sugar solution from wood pulp, which the company has been using for paper manufacturing, and will further aim to establish a technology to efficiently produce ethanol through a fermentation process using yeast.
Sugar solution derived from wood could be used not only as a raw material for food and pharmaceutical products, but also for the production of bioplastics. In addition to its use as a fuel, ethanol can be a substitute for petroleum-derived products as a raw material for a variety of chemical products. In particular, its use as a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) is also expected to increase demand in the future. Thus, woody biomass will greatly increase its value beyond mere fuel, as a new resource for producing highly functional chemical products.
This pilot plant is an important step toward technological verification and process optimization with a view to commercialization in FY2030. The Oji Group will apply the wood procurement and processing technologies it has developed in the papermaking industry to promote the high-value-added use of forest resources. This attempt to redefine wood from a "resource to be burned" to a "material to be chemically converted" has the potential to lead to the creation of a new supply chain that crosses forestry, paper manufacturing, and biochemistry.
