Winning Starbucks, Yunnan Baiyao… Sun Paper's New Materials Open Up New Markets

Times keep advancing, yet most traditional papermaking businesses in China are criticized for being unable to meet the new needs of end-brand customers.

As the Chinese papermaking enterprise with the largest market value today, Sun Paper, relying on innovative technology, has launched a large number of patented new products and won major customers and large markets such as Starbucks, McDonald's and Yunnan Baiyao. In a future where scenarios drive demand, it has blazed a new path for the transformation and upgrading of papermaking enterprises.

Disposable Paper Cups

Many people regard disposable paper cups as recyclable waste, but under the pilot regulations on waste sorting they are placed in the non-recyclable "dry waste" category.

Wang Yue, a researcher at the R&D Center of Shandong Sun Paper Co., Ltd., pointed out: "There is a thin plastic film on the surface of a paper cup. Most people know that plastic is not degradable, and during recycling the paper cup and the plastic film are hard to separate, so the cup loses its recycling value as well."

Looking at the global market, Starbucks alone consumes 4 billion disposable paper cups a year. How can their recycling value be restored? In Sun Paper's laboratory, researchers demonstrated the following: two seemingly identical paper cups were placed in water and stirred — the ordinary cup left behind a plastic film, while their new cup dissolved completely.

Wang Yue, a researcher at the R&D Center of Shandong Sun Paper Co., Ltd., said: "Because the surface of this paper cup is coated with a new type of coating, which can likewise be applied to the cup's surface to form a thin film and also serves to block water, yet it can be recycled and reused."

Now this technology from Sun Paper has obtained the world's most stringent EU certification, and the new paper cups have been adopted by companies such as Starbucks and McDonald's. There are many more such world-first scientific research achievements at Sun Paper, supported behind the scenes by the company's national-level technology center and more than 30 research centers scattered across its workshops.

Anti-counterfeiting Label Paper

Zhang Wei of Shandong Sun Paper Co., Ltd., said: "To achieve sustainable development, we must develop a cutting-edge product with market foresight. Whatever the market needs, our various production and R&D teams can quickly develop such new products and launch them on the market."

Technological innovation has satisfied the unique needs of many customers. One type of anti-counterfeiting label paper, for instance, originated from a requirement of Yunnan Baiyao: they wanted a toothpaste box that could incorporate the logo into the paper itself, so that consumers could distinguish genuine from counterfeit.

The difficulty of this technology lies in spraying directly onto the flowing pulp during the paper production process, where the stability of the pattern is very hard to control. Extensive research was done on the ink to ensure its zero-diffusion effect. In terms of equipment matching, a long period of fine-tuning was also required.

After three years of tackling the problem, this thin sheet of packaging paper has accumulated more than 20 patents, and Yunnan Baiyao's annual purchase volume has leapt from over 10,000 tons to 100,000 tons. Major enterprises in sectors such as tobacco and pharmaceuticals have also followed one after another. New technologies continuously open up new markets, giving the company the confidence to expand capacity.

Sun Paper's New Materials

Shandong TV reported: Sun Paper's process innovation and product innovation.

At present, Sun Paper's new materials mainly include natural cellulose (dissolving pulp) and low-grammage high-grade kraft linerboard, among others.

Among them, natural cellulose (dissolving pulp) has an annual output scale of 500,000 tons, making Sun Paper China's largest and the world's third-largest supplier of natural cellulose (dissolving pulp).

Low-grammage high-grade kraft linerboard has an annual output scale of 800,000 tons. Besides low grammage and high strength, the product also features good water resistance and high wet strength. During production, special water-repellent and moisture-proof process designs are applied to the paper, and in the outer packaging design, plastic stretch film can also be used for wrapping, meeting the needs of customers at different levels; it is widely used in the fields of logistics packaging, precision instruments and frozen food packaging.