Paper mills rarely become more sustainable because of one large technology change.

More often, the gains are spread across dozens of smaller process decisions.

How much refining energy is required?

How often does a water circuit need cleaning?

How much steam is lost because drainage is poor?

How much fibre ends up in rejects?

And when paper moves into food packaging, how much additional chemistry is needed to give it grease or moisture resistance?

Those are the questions behind CHT Group’s portfolio for MIAC 2026, taking place in Lucca, Italy, from October 7–9.

At booth C60, the specialty-chemicals supplier will present technologies covering water treatment, barrier coatings, enzymatic fibre treatment and stickies control.

Individually, these look like unrelated chemical products.

Together, they point toward a broader trend:

paper chemistry is increasingly being judged not only by whether it improves paper quality, but by whether it can reduce energy, water, fibre losses and recycling problems at the same time.

BIOTIKOS takes a different approach to mill water

One of the more unusual technologies in CHT’s portfolio is BIOTIKOS.

Paper-machine water circuits are highly vulnerable to microbiological growth.

Warm process water containing fibre, starch and other organic material creates conditions where bacteria can develop slime and deposits.

The consequences can include:

machine contamination,

sheet defects,

more cleaning,

and downtime.

Conventional treatment frequently relies on biocides including oxidizing agents, isothiazolinones or DBNPA.

BIOTIKOS takes a different approach.

CHT describes it as a probiotic water-treatment system using naturally occurring, non-GMO, non-pathogenic bacterias. The idea is to introduce beneficial microorganisms that compete with unwanted slime-forming and odour-producing species rather than relying on conventional biocidal chemistry.

CHT says the technology can be used in paper-machine water circuits, cooling systems, freshwater plants and deinking applications.

That makes BIOTIKOS interesting beyond the environmental positioning.

If biological control can be maintained with fewer hazardous treatment chemicals, mills could potentially reduce chemical handling while maintaining cleaner process water.

But the real test is operational.

Paper mills will want to know how reliably the biological system performs under changing:

temperature,

pH,

furnish,

machine shutdowns,

and contamination loads.

CHT has not published detailed MIAC data comparing BIOTIKOS with conventional biocide programmes in terms of downtime or cost, so those results should remain application-specific.

Enzymes target one of the mill’s biggest electricity consumers

CHT’s QUIMIZIME and ZIAX enzyme systems address a different problem.

Refining consumes electricity because fibres have to be mechanically treated to develop bonding properties.

But aggressive refining can also create:

fines,

fibre damage,

and unnecessary water retention.

CHT says its cellulase-based enzyme systems pre-condition fibres through controlled fibrillation and delamination, allowing the subsequent mechanical refining stage to achieve target paper properties with less mechanical stress.

The company lists potential benefits including:

lower refining energy,

faster drainage,

chemical savings,

improved strength,

and, in some applications, the ability to substitute some long fibre with shorter fibre.

The technology can be used with virgin, recycled, chemical and mechanical pulps.

That makes enzymes particularly interesting in mills where electricity and fibre are both major cost drivers.

A small reduction in specific refining energy becomes significant when multiplied across continuous production.

The same is true if improved fibre development allows a mill to adjust its furnish.

As with most process chemicals, however, the economics depend heavily on the grade, fibre source and operating conditions.

CHT has not disclosed one universal energy-saving percentage for the MIAC applications, and mills should not assume that every furnish will respond identically.

Stickies control is really a machine-efficiency problem

CHT’s third focus, stickies control, may sound less strategic.

It is not.

Recycled fibre brings adhesives, labels, coatings and other contaminants into the paper process.

These materials can accumulate on:

wires,

felts,

rolls,

and other machine surfaces.

Eventually they contribute to:

sheet defects,

web breaks,

cleaning shutdowns,

and shorter clothing life.

CHT will promote its TUXOL PSR-70 DE felt and wire treatment together with CHT-FIX 100T.

CHT says the system is designed to prevent sticky deposits, improve drainage and extend felt and wire life.

The sustainability connection is straightforward.

Better drainage can mean less steam required later in the dryer section.

Fewer deposits can mean fewer wash-ups.

Higher fibre yield means less purchased recovered paper is lost.

Longer felt and wire life means fewer consumables.

So stickies control is not simply a cleanliness programme.

It can influence the total cost of running recycled fibre.

That becomes more important as mills push recycled-content levels higher and feedstock quality becomes more variable.

BIOLAY addresses the opposite end of the paper lifecycle

The other major part of CHT’s MIAC portfolio sits outside the mill process itself.

BIOLAY is a barrier-coating family aimed particularly at food packaging requiring resistance to grease and oil.

CHT describes the latest BIOLAY products as free from fluorocarbons, biodegradable and made without synthetically produced compounds. The company also offers plant-based, paraffin-free CHT-COAT WAX emulsions to adjust barrier performance for different applications.

This addresses one of the central problems in fibre packaging.

Paper is recyclable partly because the fibre can be separated again in water.

But many food packages need additional functionality.

Every coating introduced to provide:

grease resistance,

water resistance,

or sealing

can potentially make fibre recovery more difficult.

That trade-off is becoming more important under the EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation.

PPWR explicitly identifies barriers and coatings as design parameters because they can interfere with recycling, and it favors combinations that maintain a high yield of secondary raw material.

That creates a clear direction for coating development:

deliver the required package function with the lowest recycling penalty possible.

“PPWR compliant” still needs careful wording

CHT says BIOLAY meets requirements associated with the Single-Use Plastics Directive and the new PPWR framework.

That claim should not be interpreted as meaning that any package using BIOLAY automatically becomes PPWR compliant.

PPWR compliance ultimately applies to the finished packaging system.

The regulation will assess factors including:

material composition,

coatings,

adhesives,

printing,

sortability,

and resulting secondary-material yield.

Detailed EU design-for-recycling criteria are still being developed for adoption by 2028, with recyclability performance grades applying from 2030.

So a low-impact coating can help a package move in the right direction.

It cannot determine the regulatory outcome by itself.

The common thread is resource productivity

At first glance, BIOTIKOS, QUIMIZIME, TUXOL and BIOLAY serve very different parts of papermaking.

One treats process water.

One changes fibre development.

One controls contaminants.

One adds packaging functionality.

But they are all attempting to improve the amount of useful output produced from each unit of input.

Less refining energy per tonne.

Less cleaning.

Less steam.

Fewer fibre losses.

Less problematic barrier chemistry.

That is increasingly where sustainability and mill economics overlap.

Paper producers do not need environmental technologies that work only when energy and fibre are cheap.

They need systems that reduce environmental impact because they also reduce operating waste.

MIAC will therefore be less about “green chemistry” than process economics

That may be the more useful way to read CHT’s 2026 portfolio.

The environmental argument is visible.

Biocide reduction.

Plant-based coatings.

Lower energy.

Better fibre utilization.

But mills will ultimately evaluate the products through production data.

How much less refining electricity?

How many fewer cleaning hours?

How much longer do felts last?

How much steam is saved?

What barrier performance is reached?

Does the coated package remain repulpable?

Those questions determine whether the chemistry scales.

Sustainability may create the reason to investigate a new technology.

Operating economics determine whether the mill continues using it.

Last Updated on 18/09/2026 by Jota Machinery