Voith Launches PluraMaze to Reduce Energy Consumption in Refining with Proven Customer Benefits

Voith introduces PluraMaze, a new generation of refiner fillings designed to significantly improve energy efficiency and lifetime in refining. The new solution addresses key challenges faced by paper manufacturers worldwide, including rising energy costs, increasing pressure on efficiency and changing raw material qualities.

Initial customer installations are demonstrating measurable benefits. For example, Progroup, a packaging paper producer of containerboard based in Burg, Germany, selected PluraMaze 5.6, focusing specifically on energy efficiency and process stability under comparable operating conditions. “With PluraMaze, we were able to reduce no-load power by more than 30 percent compared to the previous filling, which has a direct impact on our energy consumption. At the same time, the process runs more stable, and we achieve more consistent quality of the final paper,” said Kevin Zilm, Deputy Production Manager at Progroup.

These energy savings are the result of a newly developed filling geometry based on a labyrinth like structure. The patent-pending application design reduces internal backflow and significantly lowers no load power.

Further customer installations confirm energy-saving potential in different refining applications. In a long fiber application at Pfleiderer Spezialpapiere, a German producer of specialty papers made from virgin fibers in Teisnach, PluraMaze 5.3 was evaluated against the previous Voith Pluralis filling with a focus on energy saving under comparable operating conditions. “With PluraMaze, we saw clear improvements in energy efficiency reducing no-load power by 27 percent,” says Reinhold Walter, Head of Research and Development at Pfleiderer Spezialpapiere.

The new PluraMaze 5.6 variant optimized for European and Asian OCC pulps enables enhanced fiber treatment and delivers longer lifetime. At a Japanese specialty paper mill, PluraMaze delivered a 70 to 80 percent increase in lifetime compared to Pluralis, Voith's previous filling generation under comparable operating conditions. This performance directly reduces annual wear-part costs and the frequency of filling changes.

In China, a leading containerboard producer tested PluraMaze 6.5 in an OCC line with a focus on improving refining efficiency. In comparison to Voith’s Pluralis fillings, PluraMaze delivered a higher refining degree under comparable operating conditions, pointing to more efficient fiber treatment.

PluraMaze is available in three variants for different requirements: PluraMaze 5.3 for customers with a primary focus on refining results and energy efficiency, PluraMaze 5.6 for a balanced combination of energy efficiency and lifetime, and PluraMaze 6.5 optimized for maximum lifetime. This modular approach allows paper manufacturers to select the ideal type depending on their operational priorities.