Case Story Austria

Circular economy system integrating biogas into process to produce high quality products from recycled paper

July 2021

Production of high quality products from recycled paper

W.Hamburger, part of the Austrian Prinzhorn Holding, located in Pitten, Lower Austria, offers its partners throughout Europe a full programme of high-quality corrugated case material products. Production is based in four European countries: Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Turkey. The group produces high-quality corrugated case material, as well as plasterboard liner and paperboard. In Pitten, Austria, 450,000 tons of paper and board are produced annually on 2 paper machines. Due to the focus on sustainability, recycling waste streams from the industry via anaerobic digestion of wastewater is a matter of course. W.Hamburger has used recycled paper for decades as a raw material for the production of various paper and board products. In accordance with environmental regulations and additionally to gain a competitive business advantage, different stages of wastewater treatment are installed.

In Pitten, W.Hamburger operates its own wastewater treatment plant to clean wastewater volumes of 6,000 m³ per day. After a mechanical cleaning stage, four anaerobic reactors with a total volume of 3,500 m³ generate approximately 17,600 Nm³ of biogas per day (c. 3m3 biogas per m3 wastewater), depending on the operating status. There is also a biogas storage tank with a volume of 250 m³ at 35 mbar. The produced biogas is cleaned in a biogas scrubber and combusted in boilers for thermal energy and in a combined heat and power (CHP) process for electrical and thermal energy production. The wastewater is finally treated in an aerobic stage in house before final cleaning offsite in the municipal wastewater treatment facility.