Operational experience with the innovative Sleeve roll technology at Palm PM5

The Aalen-Neukochen mill is the origin and headquarters of the Palm Group and Papierfabrik Palm. In addition to the production of corrugated cardboard base paper, the site also houses the administration and sales departments for the three German paper mills.

As part of an investment of 500 million euros, the old plant, which consisted of three outdated paper machines, a power plant, and a wastewater treatment plant, was completely dismantled between 2017 and 2022 and replaced by a modern production plant (Palm Aalen PM5) for the manufacture of ultra-lightweight corrugated cardboard base paper. The new production plant with an annual capacity of 750,000 tonnes is a trendsetter for even lower basis weights for corrugated cardboard base paper and thus for further ecologically oriented savings in corrugated cardboard packaging. Thanks to the use of the latest technologies, the paper machine supplied by Valmet produces ultra-lightweight corrugated cardboard base paper even more efficiently and in a resource-saving manner. Overall, this reduces energy requirements and emissions along the entire value chain in the production of corrugated cardboard packaging.

With a trimmed working width of 10.9 metres, Palm Aalen PM5 is the widest containerboard machine in the world and, among many other innovations, has the second sleeve roll ever supplied by VALMET in the wire section. The special feature of the sleeve roll is its high dewatering performance without vacuum. High pulsation to remove the water from the web is also avoided, which in turn has a very positive effect on the internal binding forces in the paper.

In this presentation, the concept of the PM5 and the decision-making process for the sleeve roll will be presented first. This is followed by a technical explanation of the sleeve roll and operational experience with this innovation.