RECYCLED-WOOD CLEANING PLANT BY SAUERLAND SPANPLATTE AND SIEMPELKAMP: PIONEERING COMMITMENT TO THE SUSTAINABLE USE OF WASTE WOOD

In 2023, Sauerland Spanplatte placed an order with Siempelkamp for a recycled-wood cleaning plant at its Gotha location. By commencing this collaboration, the two companies are setting benchmarks for sustainability and the “circular economy”. To date, the project has reached the 24-meter mark of the recycling tower’s total 34-meter height. A particular challenge is constructing the steel structure within an active production facility – although it’s progressing well thanks to the two companies working closely together as partners. Following their successful presence at LIGNA in May of this year, Sauerland Spanplatte and Siempelkamp see their recycling concept as validated.

Sauerländer Spanplatten GmbH & Co. KG, is a wood-based panel producer headquartered at Arnsberg that has made a commitment to taking responsibility for nature and the environment: Natural residual wood and assortments of particles from sawmills in Sauerland and Thuringia are the basis for Sauerland Spanplatte’s operations. Raw materials are utilized in the best way possible and in an environmentally friendly manner. “The use of waste wood as a material means that we’re giving this resource a new product life, keeping the CO₂ bound in the wood for several more decades and utilizing the potential of the circular economy,” says Dorothee Flötotto, Managing Director at Sauerländer Spanplatten GmbH & Co. KG.

This commitment constituted the starting point for the company’s venture with Siempelkamp: The plant for which the order was placed in August 2023 is going to be used to clean waste wood. Impurities such as metal, glass, plastic, paper and stones are going to be removed to produce the purest possible wood fraction that can then be reused in the particleboard industry. The process will also make it possible for the foreign materials to then be directed into their own recycling stream and so ensure a sustainable circular economy. The plant capacity has been specified at 15 tons per hour, which means that it will in future be possible to realize half of the location’s total particleboard production from recycled wood.

The joint project between Sauerland Spanplatte and Siempelkamp demonstrates how the two companies are putting their commitment to sustainability and resource efficiency into practice. The proportion of recycled material in the traditional particleboard industry has been growing strongly in Germany for several years. This order for a complete recycling plant is a first for Siempelkamp. “The Siempelkamp name stands for excellent planning competence and engineering expertise along with technological experience in the market. We’re bringing this experience specifically to the project, which we’re realizing in a really constructive way with Sauerland Spanplatte. One important foundation for the new plant is the R&D process, which was also carried out jointly with our customer,” says Moritz Schränkler, Development Engineer for Technology and Innovation at Siempelkamp, who is also responsible for recycling there. The market has responded with strong interest to this expertise and, specifically at Sauerland Spanplatte, with the conviction that its cooperation with Siempelkamp will redefine sustainable wood-based panel production: “We worked together to analyze the entire process on a step-by-step basis, to develop the solution that was appropriate for each stage of required for the removal of impurities and to confirm the results on the basis of tests with sub-suppliers,” emphasizes Dr. Lars Kloeser, Technical Manager at Sauerland Spanplatte.  

The plant is to be commissioned at the end of 2025: “We’re assuming that we’ll be able to remove almost 100% of the impurities,” says Dr. Lars Kloeser. The new plant will clean the waste wood that’s used to produce the extruded particleboard at the Gotha factory, which in turn will be used to make high-quality inserts in doors and in the packaging industry. The boards impress with properties such as optimum material utilization, extremely low thickness swelling, high compressive strength and excellent sound and fire-safety properties. The use of waste wood and recycled material opens up the option for customers of being able to produce boards of consistently high quality while using raw materials that are more sustainable: “Sustainability and the circular economy are not just trend topics, they’re the biggest challenges of our time. For us, sustainability means taking responsibility – for the environment, society and our company. The commissioning of the waste-wood recycling plant is a milestone in our sustainability concept,” says Christine von Rüden, Managing Director at Sauerländer Spanplatten GmbH & Co. KG.

“We’re looking forward to successfully commissioning the results of this cooperation at the end of 2025. It was clear when we met at the LIGNA how constructively ‘Team Sauerländer’ and ‘Team Siempelkamp’ were able to exchange ideas and network in all areas of responsibility. It showed that it’s not only the plant engineering that’s special about this project, but the task that’s been solved on a holistic basis,” says Samiron Mondal, Managing Director at G. Siempelkamp GmbH & Co. KG.