2024 – Page 2 – Bio4Energy

Trees play a vital role in maintaining the health of our planet and supporting human life in various ways. To use them as an economic resource, we advocate finding ways that will sustain both us and nature. Photo by AnnaStrom ©2024.

Bio4Energy 2023: Full Steam Ahead in Education, Research, Forming Collaborations

5 July, 2024/in News/by Anna Strom

With the effects of the pandemic largely behind in northern Europe and Scandinavia, 2023 was a year of full steam ahead for the research environment Bio4Energy. This applied to the production of scientific research results, as well as education and training. It was also a year in which new collaborations and partnerships were formed.

This is the message of the 2023 Bio4Energy Annual Report, issued this month. It also says that the seven research platforms, which deliver scientific methods and tools for developing advanced biofuels, “green” chemicals and bio-based materials; had more collaboration amongst themselves than before.

Nine so-called Strategic Projects were granted on this basis of cross platform and cross-organisation cooperation. Four of them have just been listed on the Bio4Energy website.

With the effects of the pandemic largely behind in Bio4Energy’s northern European region, 2023 was a year of full steam ahead for the research environment. This applied to the production of scientific research results, as well as education and training.

Both scientific researchers and communications actively developed external collaborations. Once again, Bio4Energy helped promote the annual Advanced Biofuels Conference, which had a focus on renewable transport fuel for the maritime and airline industries.

As part of the core curriculum of the Bio4Energy Graduate School on the Innovative Use of Biomass, the team behind it launched a new course on the history of biorefining in Nordic countries, which received good reviews by students and professors in its first round.

It has a focus on the Nordic countries; Sweden, Finland and Norway. This is not only because the Bio4Energy research environment is based here, but also because of their historic importance as a hub for forestry adapted to the geological and climatic conditions of the boreal belt. Examples from Canada are an important part, because of the development of its biorefinery sector that has unfolded in parallel and partly on the same latitudes.

News in the form of popular sciences attracted attention, notably in the areas of industry – academy collaboration to lay the foundation for “green” steel making, which is expected to contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from iron and steel making industries.

So did news articles on the commercialisation of bio-based hydrogels, which are slated for use in wound healing and advances in improving bio-based input materials for biorefinery production, notably wood or woody residues from trees.

A comprehensive round-up of the chemistry involved in biorefinery processes had many views, as did news on Bio4Energy’s new representative in Bio-based Industries Consortium (BIC), which latter props up the industrial Circular Bio-based Joint Undertaking (CBE JU). It is a partnership between BIC and the European Union.

For more information

Bio4Energy Annual Report 2023 — Download Materials

Strategic Research Projects — Bio4Energy Projects

Stina Jansson (far right, centre) and team are sampling all post-incineration streams to gauge the presence and level of per- and polyfluorinated substances. Dåva combined heat and power plant at Umeå, Sweden. Photos by Ewa Weidemann, Anna Strom and UMU photographers.

Bio4Energy

Pioneering Work to Study ‘Forever’ Chemicals PFAS Targets Wastewater Treatment in Incineration Plants

17 June, 2024/in News/by Anna Strom

Backgrounder. Over the last decade, environmental chemists aiming to map and close the loop on toxic chemicals in the handling and incineration of household waste, or in combustion facilities in the bio-based sector, have increasingly turned their attention to per- and polyfluoroalkyls, PFAS.

Since the 1950s, this very large group of manmade chemicals has been used in consumer products to repel water and oil. Experts are increasingly referring to them as “forever” chemicals, because of their extreme persistence in environment, and which may also spread over wide areas through contact with water.

Even though PFAS are used worldwide in detergents, cosmetics, non-stick coatings and dirt or water-repellent textiles, their fate and impact at the end of life are largely unknown.

Academia and industry in long-standing collaboration

Environmental chemists, led by Bio4Energy’s first programme manager Stellan Marklund, were leaders in the field of isolating and assessing dioxins formed as a result of operating waste-to-energy plants.

Dioxins and dioxin-like substances, including PCBs, are persistent organic pollutants (POPs) regulated globally by the Stockholm Convention of the United Nations. POPs can travel long distances from the source of emission and bioaccumulate in food chains.

This long-standing collaboration with industry in northern Sweden, and notably with regional energy utility Umeå Energi continues with associate professor Stina Jansson of Umeå University. It draws on the knowledge obtained and infrastructure put in place to tackle the more recently seen risk of PFAS leaking to soils, air and water as a result of waste storage and incineration.

This long-standing collaboration with industry in northern Sweden, and notably with regional energy utility Umeå Energi continues with Marklund’s former student, associate professor Stina Jansson of Umeå University. It draws on the knowledge obtained and infrastructure put in place to tackle the more recently seen threat of PFAS leaking to soils, air and water as a result of waste storage and incineration.

“We do not know the fate of PFAS in waste incineration. It is a black box”, Jansson said.

Her team, however, has started tackling the problem from the ground up.

Samples taken throughout the regional combined heat and power plant at Dåva, collected by Sofie Björklund, Eva Weidemann and Alana Lansky, point to the presence of PFAS in all intra-plant waste or residual streams. In a recent scientific article, the team also shows that the common practice of supplementing household waste with digested sludge from industrial operations significantly increases the level of PFAS in flue gases, ash or process water from waste incineration.

The secret may be in the water

“We know that there are considerable amounts of PFAS in waste water sludge… and have located accumulations at the water purification stage. We see froth and even foaming in the process water”, according to Jansson.

People who go out in nature may recall seeing this type of froth or foam in shallow lake waters or, in certain countries, at the exit of waste water pipes, which could be a sign of PFAS pollution.

Thanks to the encompassing work to identify, charaterise and capture dioxins in similar contexts, the scientific researchers are able to draw parallels and make educated guesses about which types of technology can be used to rein in the lion’s share of PFAS compounds that remain onsite at the end of the incineration process.

“We are working together with other researchers to understand [how and what triggers] the breakdown of these compounds”, Jansson said.

At the Umeå cluster, the researchers are focusing on hydrothermal carbonisation. Scientists at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States of America, are targeting a method that involves using plasma for the breakdown.

“We may go into collaboration with them”, Jansson added.

Other techniques being tested elsewhere include membrane technology and ozone treatment.

“Our method of testing the process water is unique… This process water can be leachate of landfills, for example. Perhaps this will be where we can stop the pollution”, Jansson said.

New for July 2024: Press article, Helios Innovations takes the fight against eternal chemicals • PFAS – GAMINGDEPUTY

New for September 2024: News by Phys.org, Forever chemicals persist through waste incineration, researcher finds

Scientific article

Distribution of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs ) in a waste-to-energy plant: tracking PFASs in internal residual streams. In Environmental Science and Technology, ISSN 0013-936X, E-ISSN 1520-5851, Vol. 58, no 19, p. 8457-8463

Contact

Stina Jansson, Bio4Energy Environment and Nutrient Recycling

Change of Leader at Bio4Energy Environment, Nutrient Recycling – Bio4Energy

Related Projects

Activated and non-activated biochars and hydrochars from forestry-related waste streams for removal of environmental contaminants from sediments – Bio4Energy

Study visit to Bioeconomy Arena, led by Karin Johnson, right. From left, Bio4Energy researchers Jonas Hedlund, Junko Schmidt, Stefan Stagge, Bianca Brandt and Amisha Patel. Photo by Anna Strom.

©AnnaStrom

Sweden’s Bioeconomy Arena to Open by Early 2025: Bio4Energy Researchers Stopped by

10 June, 2024/in News/by Anna Strom

Bio4Energy took its business to Örnsköldsvik, northeastern Sweden, last week for a glance at the large biorefinery development ventures underway.

About 50 researchers visited the Bioeconomy Arena—a large development park under construction—in the wake of the Swedish government’s pledge to invest in test beds. These are a means to realise the bioeconomy and meet goals to contain climate change.

“The start up of pilots [will take place] this autumn or early 2025”, said Karin Johnson, shepherding the Bio4Energy group at a study visit.

Johnson is CEO at Bio4Energy strategic partner Processum Biorefinery Cluster, institute partner to the companies at the Domsjoe Development Area. They include the full-scale biorefinery Domsjö Fabriker of Aditya Birla, Örnsköldsvik Energi, SEKAB, Liquid Wind, Norion and others.

The development park for biorefinery, Bioeconomy Arena on the northeast coast of Sweden, will have 130 – 150 test beds designed to test and evaluate bio-based processes in increasingly large steps up to pre-industrial level.

The Arena will have 130 – 150 test beds designed to test and evaluate bio-based processes in increasingly large steps up to pre-industrial level, according to David Blomberg Saitton, Processum.

Pulping, chemicals, carbon capture and storage, carbon capture and use, plus industrial biotechnology are the overarching focal areas, he said.

The facilities covering hundreds of square metre of purpose-made grounds, complete with access to media such as electricity, steam and water; will include a “customer” area designed for companies keen to test their process on the grounds, but without having to share patenting information with Processum staff technicians, Johnson revealed.

Companies will have access to rental space to test a container-based process, she explained.

In connection with the study visit, Bio4Energy hosted its biannual Researchers’ Meeting. Impressions of the event, below, are courtesy of our scientific and institute researchers, as well as their students. Without them, there would be no research environment Bio4Energy.

Photos are by Anna Strom, Bio4Energy Communications.

For more information

Bio4Energy Researchers’ Meeting

Processum Biorefinery Cluster

Domsjö Fabriker AB

Contact Biorefinery Arena

David Blomberg Saitton, Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion — Processum at RISE

Bio4Energy

September Start for Bio4Energy’s Training to Scale up Bio-based Innovations

25 April, 2024/in News/by Anna Strom

Bio4Energy’s training on the scale up of bio-based innovations is starting again in September. The application is open as of today.

The backdrop is substantial new investments in test beds and development facilities in the region of northern Sweden where the research environment is based.

“We will go onsite visiting not only pilot [installations] of different types, but whole factories in our network of actors based along the coast at Örnsköldsvik, Piteå and Umeå.

“We will see this great variation and speak to the developers themselves”, said course coordinator Francesco Gentili.

“We will go onsite visiting not only pilot installations of different types, but whole factories in our network of actors based along the coast at Örnsköldsvik, Piteå and Umeå. We will see this great variation and speak to the developers themselves”.

He is not only an associate professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, but also the man behind facilities for microalgae research and development run in collaboration with regional energy utility Umeå Energi.

Biorefinery Pilot Research, as the course is called, is the flagship of the Bio4Energy Graduate School on the Innovative Use of Biomass.

Bio4Energy draws together the regions foremost universities and institutes dealing with the development of methods and tools for conducting biorefinery based on woody residues and industrial organic waste. As such, it is on a mission to provide education and training to help provide the sector with knowledge workers of tomorrow’s bioeconomy and advanced students with top-of-the-line education.

The course is offered as a mixture of intensive days of onsite visits—starting 2-4 September at Piteå—with time in between where students work to develop their own projects. They do this either by implementing an aspect of upscaling in their own PhD project or; if they are postdoctoral fellows established as researchers; they may create something new.

“We speak to and learn from capable fundamental researchers, all the way up to industrialists”.

“We speak to [and learn from] capable fundamental researchers, all the way up to industrialists”, Gentili told Bio4Energy Communications.

The group goes on study visits to well-known companies in the sector such as SunPine and the large pilot LTU Green Fuels at Piteå, as well as their institute partner in Bio4Energy, RISE Energy Technology Center.

Further south, at Örnsköldsvik, key contacts in the Bio4Energy Industrial Network will show them the new RISE Bioeconomy Arena, Domsjö Fabriker, SEKAB and RISE Processum. At Umeå, finally, Gentili will showcase the algae pilot and include a tour of Arevo, which has gone from being a Bio4Energy researcher upstart to a full-grown company offering a new kind of plant nutrition product that does not create toxic leakage, while being highly efficient.

“We stay, eat and study together and it creates the opportunity for networking”, Gentili said, adding a reflection on the bigger picture;

“It creates job opportunities. We train people to know the infrastructure and strengthen the collaboration in our region”.

Contacts

Francesco Gentili — Course coordinator Biorefinery Pilot Research

Dimitris Athanassiadis — Coordinator for the Bio4Energy Graduate School

Bio4Energy Graduate School

Biorefinery Pilot Research, 5 ECTS

Course Brochure and Application

New Coordinator for Graduate School: Course Starts in 2024

Spin-off Wins Prize for ‘Great Potential’ of Plant Nutrition Products with Minimal Footprint

RISE to Invest SEK350 Million in Its Biorefinery Test Bed Environments

In his PhD thesis, researcher Martin Plöhn lays out a scheme for wastewater treatment using microalgae. Photos by Anna Strom and Umea University photographers.

Microalgae that Thrive in Cold Climate Clean Wastewater, Give Biomass for Renewable Plastics

20 March, 2024/in News/by Anna Strom

A research report—covering five years of investigations—shows that microalgae grown in cold and dark conditions may not only be made to thrive on their own, but also remove the heavy metal content of industrial wastewater that conventional treatment plants do not filter out.

The high performing algal strain selected also turned out to produce ample carbohydrate biomass suitable for making bio-based plastics.

The academic research team behind the findings is based in northern Sweden; where winters are long, cold and dark. However, the cluster—including the research environment Bio4Energy and the MicroBioRefine project—have some of Scandinavia’s leading scientists in the field of developing biomass from blue-green algae as a renewable input material for making products.

The research report, by recent PhD graduate Martin Plöhn, will be released by Bio4Energy’s lead partner Umeå University as soon as details of its major findings have been cleared for publication in the chief biotechnology journal of a well-known publisher.

The researchers have identified a common and locally available strain, Chlorella vulgaris, as a top performer among microalgae when it comes to cleaning wastewater of cadmium, copper and lead. There was no additional source of energy or lighting added.

In a nutshell, the researchers have identified a common and locally available strain, Chlorella vulgaris, as a top performer among microalgae when it comes to cleaning wastewater of cadmium, copper and lead. The process has been tested in a research laboratory. There was no additional source of energy or lighting added to indoor room temperatures, daytime indoor (fluorescent) lighting and natural daylight.

Cleaning with microalgae after conventional wastewater treatment, to meet legal standards

Turned into a fully-fledged technology, the scheme would allow industries whose activities leave substantial amounts of wastewater in their wake, to shave the last one-to-two micrograms of heavy metals off wastewater already treated in a conventional treatment plant. The scheme comes with optional provisions for reuse in industry of the heavy metals thus recycled.

“Our microalgae can be used to treat wastewater to remove pollutants and produce freshwater…. We do not want to replace the conventional treatment system, but come in at the end and take away the heavy metal content that is still higher than the law”, doctor Plöhn told Bio4Energy Communications.

“Our microalgae can be used to remove pollutants and treat wastewater to produce freshwater… We do not want to replace the conventional treatment system, but come in at the end and take away the heavy metal content that is still higher than the law”.

In the second part of the microalgae project, Chlorella vulgaris again outperformed other strains tested when it came to producing polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), a type of plastic, via bacterial breakdown of the biomass. The process has been tested in up to 25 litres of wastewater at a time, in a research laboratory.

Checking for unwanted emissions and scaling up

After successful proof of concept trials, the researchers have received expressions of interest for testing the concept on a larger scale from Bio4Energy partners at the RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. Plöhn and colleagues now are looking for industrial partners.

“We are looking for people who could be interested in the forest industry, with the message that we can add value… to existing processes”, he said.

The researchers collaborate with colleagues at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences to perform life-cycle assessment studies; to double check that their concept is sustainable in terms of minimising greenhouse gas emissions. Technically, the algae consume carbon dioxide down to net zero, but the researchers want to make sure that the system is water tight.

Dissertation in hand, Plöhn is not about to finish working on the project anytime soon. The microalgae also produce lipids and protein. Moreover there is the bio fertilizer route that remains to be explored.

“I see opportunities to explore this concept beyond carbohydrates. There will always be wastewater that needs to be treated. We need to use what we have right now”, he said.

Since late March Plöhn is a staff scientist at Umeå University and industry representatives are invited to contact him and the research team there for at least another nine months.

New for September 2024: News by NewsGram, Researchers aim to create biodegradable plastic – from algae (newsgram.com)

PhD Dissertation

Revealing the potential of Nordic microalgae — Turning waste streams into resources

Bio4Energy Contacts

Doctor Martin Plöhn — Affiliation with Umeå University

PhD Supervisor, Professor Christiane Funk — Affiliation with Umeå University

Related Projects

For more information

MicroBioRefine project

Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion

©AnnaStrom

Training on Wood Biology, Biotechnology Fills Gap for Advanced Students of Biorefinery

23 February, 2024/in News/by Anna Strom

Mini FEATURE. Northern Sweden, last week was home to advanced students affiliated with universities in Finland, Czech Republic, Belgium and Sweden—spending an intensive week at the city of Umeå—to learn about the frontline of science of wood biology and biotechnology.

Hosted by a leading wood biologists, Ewa Mellerowicz of the Umeå Plant Science Centre and Bio4Energy, this ad-hoc training is offered for the second time to equip advanced students interested in wood biology, tree breeding and biorefinery development with an edge.

“This course fills a gap and provides an overview of biological processes, explaining how they lead to developing different kinds of wood, and how they affect wood traits of economic importance”, the online course description says:

“Lectures and seminars are given by world experts in the field”.

“This course fills a gap and provides an overview of biological processes, explaining how they lead to developing different kinds of wood, and how they affect wood traits of economic importance. Lectures and seminars are given by world experts in the field”.

When I stop by, the students are in full swing presenting posters to each other, a common feature both in advanced education and at scientific conferences.

“It is going great”, Hannele Tuominen, professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and platform leader in Bio4Energy, greets me.

“We have 20 students and here they learn to attack the issues we are discussing from every angle. We have a lineup of experts here to teach them [on location]. This is our strength”, Tuominen says.

“Most students have a molecular biology or wood chemistry background”, Mellerowicz fills in. She also has an affiliation with the Umeå branch of SLU. She agrees with a smile that it is great but exhausting;

“The students are here all week with a full programme in the daytime and then social activities in the evening”.

Most of them are much too busy liaising with each other to talk to me, but Bio4Energy student Anna Renström of Umeå University, is here just for the evening poster session.

“We have a new publication on wood formation in hybrid aspen that lets us know more about the lignin formation. Now we need to apply [the concept] to other species such as spruce and we need to conduct field trials to understand whether it really works”, she says expertly.

Renström is being supervised by Tuominen and others who are part of the teaching line up and I think to myself that it shows.

Contact

Ewa Mellerowicz, Umeå Plant Science Centre — Affiliation with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

For more information

Wood Biology and Biotechnology, 5 ECTS

Bio4Energy Forest-based Feedstocks

Umeå Plant Science Centre

©AnnaStrom

R&I on Bio Based in EU projects: ‘We Could Be More Proactive’

8 February, 2024/in News/by Anna Strom

Bio4Energy’s new coordinator for member organisation Bio-based Industries’ Consortium (BIC), Carlos Martín of Umeå University, is in Brussels, Belgium to network with industry members with a view to lay the foundations for an EU project.

February 8 BIC members met to network with companies, consultants and academics. The aim is jointly to apply for funds from the Circular Bio-based Joint Undertaking (CBE JU), which is a partnership between BIC and the European Union.

“On the Bio4Energy platforms we have expertise and knowledge of value for forming strong EU projects”, Martín said.

“We are interested in the topic Biotech routes to obtain bio-based chemicals or materials to replace animal-derived ones”.

“We are interested in the topic Biotech routes to obtain bio-based chemicals or materials to replace animal-derived ones”, he added.

As Martín points out, there is a lot at stake. The CBE JU partnership itself is worth €2 billion, according to its website.

It corresponds to the part of the Horizon Europe research and innovation (R&I) programme that is concerned with “advancing competitive circular bio-based industries”.

More specifically, it aims to accelerate the development of bio-based innovative solutions and their market deployment, while ensuring a high level of environmental performance of bio-based industrial systems.

“We could be more proactive toward partnerships and programs under Horizon 2020, including the [Joint Undertaking]”, Martin said;

“We have strong research that competes well with that of groups leading successful project proposals”.

Carlos Martín Medina is a long-standing member of the research environment Bio4Energy and its research platform Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion. He has been part of developing state-of-the-art pre-treatment methods that allows for easier breakdown of woody biomass for conversion to liquid biofuels, together with current programme manager Leif Jönsson of Umeå University.

Having come to lean toward bio-based materials, Martín spearheaded a large collaboration project with Bolivia to make use of the abundant residue from the country’s production of quinoa, a staple food. In 2019, he took up a professorship at the Inland University of Applied Sciences in Norway, but continues to do research for Bio4Energy and Umeå University on investigating spent mushroom substrate as an input material for making products.

Contact

Carlos Martín

For more information

Circular Bio-based Europe Joint Undertaking

Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion

Bio4Energy Researchers Meet to Usher in New Developments on Energy, Material Production – Bio4Energy

Quinoa Project Classifies New Building Block for Biorefinery – Bio4Energy

Bio4Energy

Seeing Possibilities: Meet Bio4Energy’s Coordinator for Swedish funder BioInnovation

1 February, 2024/in News/by Anna Strom

Bio4Energy’s new coordinator for BioInnovation, Swedish funder of bio-based innovations, is Ulrika Rova, professor at Luleå University of Technology.

Rova sees herself not only as the research environment’s representative with an overview of possibilities for applying for funds, but also as a facilitator and a bearer of information to potential collaboration partners representing other organisations in the bio-based sector.

“I need first to study the offer and future calls for projects, but then I can be a channel for information going both ways”, Rova told Bio4Energy Communications.

Structured as a member organisation, BioInnovation evaluates and funds a range of projects on behalf of the Swedish national funding agencies Vinnova, Formas and the Swedish Energy Agency. Bio4Energy is a founding member, or a “party”, and involved in its divisions on Materials, as well as Chemicals and Energy.

Structured as a member organisation, BioInnovation evaluates and funds a range of projects on behalf of the Swedish national funding agencies Vinnova, Formas and the Swedish Energy Agency. Bio4Energy is a founding member, or a “party”, and involved in its divisions on Materials, as well as Chemicals and Energy.

“Our vision is that Sweden will have transitioned to a circular economy by 2050. We are going to create optimal conditions for developing the Swedish bio-based sector and create sustainable solutions for a global market”, the Swedish version of BioInnovation’s website said (ed’s translation).

Two projects headed up by Bio4Energy research leaders stand out: Joint production of edible mushroom and advanced biofuel, as well as production of food-grade prebiotics from forest resources and sea squirts, a colonial tunicate.

The latter is a small sea-living invertebrate that has an outer protective cover; a tunic consisting of a cellulose-like substance; which is the target for developing prebiotics for human and animal consumption.

Rova led the prebiotics project. Given that Bio4Energy is a member since 2015, I want to know what might promote a more high-profile participation in BioInnovation-funded projects.

“The requirement of 50 per cent co-funding by proprietary users, that is an industrial partner, could be perceived as a challenge. As an [academic] researcher, you need to have a good contact network in industry”, Rova said.

“I will be participating the annual and biannual meetings and provide an overview of possibilities going both ways”, she said.

Professor Ulrika Rova is a veteran member of Bio4Energy. She served as deputy director of the research environment during its second five-year mandate, ending in 2019. Instrumental in developing education and training, she was the first head of the Bio4Energy Graduate School. She is a senior member of one of Bio4Energy’s research platforms, Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion. Her home organisation is Luleå University of Technology where she is part of a Paul Christakopoulos' research group specialising in biochemical process technology. In later years, the group has been focusing on carbon dioxide capture and reuse, as well as bioprocesses for upcycling of plastics and managing EU projects.

Contact

Ulrika Rova, Bio4Energy Coordinator for BioInnovation — Affiliation with Luleå University of Technology

For more information

BioInnovation

Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion Technologies

Related News (In Swedish)

Det stora blå – med enorm potential i framtidens hållbara utveckling – BioInnovation

Inhemsk odling av delikata matsvampar i sikte – och biodrivmedel på köpet – BioInnovation

Svensk innovation kan ge billigare matsvampar – BioInnovation

Fördelen med att odla läckra svampar på björkved – BioInnovation

Senior lecturer and instrumentation expert Fredrik Forsberg, at Luleå University of Technology Geolab in 2022. Photo by courtesy of Fredrik Forsberg.

Bio4Energy Partner LTU Part of ‘Largest Investment in Material Science in Sweden’

19 January, 2024/in News/by Anna Strom

A Swedish funder of research in the bio-based sector has announced the largest investment ever in the northern European country in terms of sustainable material science, and notably in infrastructure to advance it.

Bio4Energy partner Luleå University of Technology (LTU) is one of seven research universities to benefit, having won a hefty SEK52 million (€4.6 million) grant to fund instrumentation that will allow researchers quickly to measure various material reactions to flow, pressure or load and to variations in climate.

“The equipment will be unique in Sweden. We are right here in northern Sweden where the large industrial investments towards the green transition are located”, said Fredrik Forsberg, Bio4Energy expert at fluid and experimental mechanics at LTU.

“We are going to build a strong node for material science research; focusing on minerals, metals and hydrogen; all of which are essential raw materials in this transition”, Forsberg added.

“We are going to build a strong node for material science research; focusing on minerals, metals and hydrogen; all of which are essential raw materials in this transition”.

The vision of the Wallenberg Initiative Materials Science for Sustainability (WISE), where the seven universities are members, is to “enable sustainable technologies with positive impact on our society by understanding, creating and controlling complex materials”, according to its homepage.

It is the single largest investment in material research in Sweden—the share going to LTU is one tenth of the total—and the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation is behind it.

In the case of LTU, the grant monies will be invested both in infrastructure at the university and at the southern Sweden-based synchrotron Max IV Laboratory; where beamlines for very advanced X-ray-based research is available for scientists from all over the world.

“We expect to start using the new equipment a year from now. It will be available to all WISE researchers and for all in joint projects regarding sustainability issues”, Forsberg said.

From the presentation late 2019 of its Green Deal, the European Union started referring to the “green transition” as being a bridge in time to meeting goals in terms of cutting greenhouse gas emissions and arresting environmental degradation.

Advanced Characterisation Techniques at the Luleå Material Imaging and Analysis Facility (WISE ACT @LUMIA) at Luleå University of Technology include high-resolution 3D X-ray imaging (dynamic/high-energy/spectral XCT) and precision milling (laser ablation FIB) coupled with scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The platform offers excellent capabilities for analysis related to the new technologies emerging in northern Sweden, the hotspot for the green transition. Key research areas, in close collaboration with leading industry, include fossil-free steel, carbon dioxide and hydrogen storage, sustainable batteries, extraction of critical raw materials, and additive manufacturing. 
From WISE Technology Platforms, wise-materials.org

Contact

Fredrik Forsberg — Affiliation with Luleå University of Technology

New as of 5 February 2024: Scientific article

Advanced materials provide solutions towards a sustainable world, Nature Materials 17, 1052–1053.

For more information

Wallenberg Initiative Materials Science for Sustainability (WISE)

WISE at Luleå University of Technology (LTU)

Luleå Material Imaging and Analysis Facility

Bio4Energy Thermochemical Conversion

Bio4Energy 2023: Full Steam Ahead in Education, Research, Forming Collaborations

Pioneering Work to Study ‘Forever’ Chemicals PFAS Targets Wastewater Treatment in Incineration Plants

Sweden’s Bioeconomy Arena to Open by Early 2025: Bio4Energy Researchers Stopped by

September Start for Bio4Energy’s Training to Scale up Bio-based Innovations

Microalgae that Thrive in Cold Climate Clean Wastewater, Give Biomass for Renewable Plastics

Training on Wood Biology, Biotechnology Fills Gap for Advanced Students of Biorefinery

R&I on Bio Based in EU projects: ‘We Could Be More Proactive’

Seeing Possibilities: Meet Bio4Energy’s Coordinator for Swedish funder BioInnovation

Bio4Energy Partner LTU Part of ‘Largest Investment in Material Science in Sweden’

CONTACT

VISITING ADDRESS

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