A model of the Vertisà AB vertical gardening module. Photo by courtesy of Vertisà AB.

Inventions by Bio4Energy Researchers Highlighted by Royal Academy for Future Potential

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Zeolite membranes for gas separation, vertical gardens and reuse of textiles to make composites. These are subjects of collaboration projects by Bio4Energy researchers who have made this year’s 100 List hosted by the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineer Sciences (KSLA).

To make the List, it takes a research project deemed to have “great potential to be useful”. This usefulness is thought of as potential for commercialisation of the product or concept studied, for development of either business or methods, or for providing thought leadership.

Another key criterion is for the project leader or researchers on the project to have expressed interest in collaborating with industry or related entities to further develop their invention.

Membrane technology for gas separation in use, tends to be bulky, energy intensive and cost a lot. Bio4Energy researchers Jonas Hedlund and Liang Yu are perfecting and developing ultra-thin zeolite membranes that take up less space and use less energy to perform the separation. These membranes would provide a large cost reduction if rolled out on a large scale, according to the scientists.

With Vertisà Ltd, Rosario García-Gil and team propose a module vertical garden that can be added onto the exterior of a house and mimics a natural ecosystem. Complete with a built-in watering system, which has been patented, it is not only designed to help with greenhouse gas capture in cities, but also serves to insulate and beautify the wall it is attached to. The module is both low-technology and low cost, according to the project leader.

A new process has been invented, which allows for reuse of scrapped textiles as a component in a new, strong type of composite material based on a mixture of discarded textiles and plastics. Kristiina Oksman and co-workers used a piece of process equipment called extruder, to mix the cut fabrics with plastics. The resulting composite is two fifths textiles and costs less than the standalone plastic polymer.

Contacts

Jonas Hedlund and Liang Yu, Bio4Energy Catalysis and Separation, affiliation with Luleå University of Technology

Rosario García-Gil, Bio4Energy Forest-based Feedstocks, affiliation with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Kristiina Oksman, Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion, affiliation with Luleå University of Technology

Torgny Näsholm and Rikard Höög of Arevo accept a prize for Best University Spin-off 2023. Photo used with permission.

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

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A university spin-off headed up by Bio4Energy researchers and partners have won a prize for the “great potential” of their innovative technology that helps new tree or agricultural plants take root, while drastically reducing negative impacts such as nutrient runoff to ground water, acidification and greenhouse gas emissions, compared with conventional fertilizers.

Arevo of Sweden markets products based on the amino acid arginine, which either is used for cultivating plants in pots or cassettes (liquid product) or stimulate growth of new roots to enhance establishment when planted in the field (granular product).

This new way of doing plant nutrition is different from the established route of planting and adding fertilizer based on ammonia and nitrate, which has well-known environmental and ecological impacts.

“This innovation tackles global challenges… and provides a solution that is revolutionary but simple”, according the jury of Umeågalan, an annual celebration of “collaboration across borders” in northern Sweden, hosted by the Municipality of Umeå.

“By combining strong research and substantial competence with a great vision for the future, the winner has great potential to continue to develop current and new markets”, the prize motivation said.

The company and its product range are built on research findings by professor Torgny Näsholm of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and colleagues, who set in motion a paradigm shift in plant science in the late 1990s.

In an article in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, they showed that seeds and seedlings take up amino acids directly, which produces a growth spurt including the establishment of solid roots and diminishes the amount of stress on plants and their ecosystem.

In the years after the initial discovery, Näsholm and colleagues showed that arginine is a preferred nitrogen source for plants such as conifer seedlings. In fact, together with partners they went on to file patents on their innovation, targeting arginine for their technology. The rest is history.

“The great advantage is efficiency and better use of resources”, Näsholm said of the new technology.

“When in plant cultivation, you always need a good start. This is a way to render effective the way in which plants use their resources for growth”, he added.

Large forestry companies, forest owners and their regional trade union are using Arevo’s products. Holmen was first out.

Näsholm sees expansion as being on the cards; with possible new markets to conquer in Finland and the Baltics, as well as new segments in Sweden such as greenhouse owners and individuals interested in growing their own produce.

Whatever the case, he welcomes the prize.

“It is nice to be noticed”.

For more information

Arevo

Umeågalan

Bio4Energy Environment and Nutrient Recycling

Bio4Energy at SLU

Related projects

Environmentally friendly L-arginine separation by use of bio mimicry – Bio4Energy

Longstanding Bio4Energy member Mikael Thyrel is new platform leader for Feedstock Pre-processing. Photo by Anna Strom ©2023.©AnnaStrom

New leader for Feedstock Pre-processing Eyes Critical Raw Materials as New Direction for Research

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Bio4Energy’s smallest research platform has a new leader with a grand vision.

Mikael Thyrel of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) has been a member of the research environment since the outset in 2010.

In fact, he first joined the laboratory of Bio4Energy’s first programme manager, professor emeritus Stellan Marklund of Umeå University. There, Thyrel rose to increasing responsibility and, in 2009, shifted to SLU to become a PhD student with associate professor Torbjörn Lestander.

Today he is not only a university lecturer, but also head of department at SLU Forest Biomaterials and Technology. His colleagues may know him as a coordinator for the Sweden-based synchrotron Max IV Laboratory for very high-tech X-ray laser research.

Although his specialty is biomass spectroscopy, Thyrel’s vision for the work on the Feedstock Pre-processing platform is much greater.

“Our platform serves the rest of Bio4Energy by designing different types of fractionated biomass. It is mostly about applied research in the area of pre-treatment”, he told Bio4Energy Communications in an online interview.

“However, we may shift our focus. We could [turn our attention to] critical raw materials, such as graphite, to make the technique sustainable and available locally.

“We have been building an electrochemical lab… where we develop biocarbon materials for use in batteries or adsorbents. We are looking at functionality and surface chemistry”, Thyrel said.

The platform would continue to rely on the Biomass Technology Centre, the university’s off-campus development facility that is always teeming with life, as technicians and scientists work hand in hand to deliver dried, fractionated or pelletised materials to customers in industry. New coordinator there is Magnus Rudolfsson, researcher.

Greatly appreciated by his colleagues, Thyrel clearly is one of those die-hard Bio4Energy members whose enthusiasm never seems to fade neither for the small wins of research progress, nor the big ones of making Sweden a leading light when it comes to designing and developing bio-based technologies that can help phase out the fossil economy.

Now he has become a platform leader in the Bio4Energy research environment.

“It feels great. Our efforts are so timely, given what is going here [in northern Sweden]. It is an industrial revolution!”, according to Thyrel.

For more information, go to: Bio4Energy Feedstock Pre-processing, Biomass Technology Centre, Bio4Energy at SLU

A slab in a furnace of a hot strip mill. Photo by courtesy of Luleå University of Technology.LTU

Three-year Project Could Set Steelmaker Well on Way to Hydrogen-based Operations

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Industry and academia are teaming up to enable a phase out of fossil fuels in Sweden-based steelmaking industry. Steelmaker SSAB will be collaborating with Luleå University of Technology (LTU) and the metal industry’s research institute Swerim.

After many years of preparatory work, and a multitude of projects, nearly SEK50 million (€4.1 million) will be invested over three years by the European Union and the Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth, according to a press release from LTU. The feasibility of using biogenic carbon sources in hydrogen production is already being demonstrated in studies by Bio4Energy scientists and others.

However, the present project could give the industry a decisive push in laying bare an efficient and economically viable path ahead for transitioning from fossil coal to “green” hydrogen, using biocarbon.

“We [want to arrive at] the best way possible to implement biomass into the flow of steelmaking… We have to make an optimal overall process: An optimised value chain as a whole”, said Kentaro Umeki, professor at LTU Energy Technology.

Four Bio4Energy research leaders are involved. Umeki and Fredrik Granberg are experts at thermochemical conversion of biomass, while Joakim Lundgren and Andrea Toffolo will be collaborating with others to assess biomass availability and possibly also where best to localise facilities geographically for its pre-treatment.

“The industry wants to scale up. This is a push from them. They have several years to build a full-scale plant. They are discussing with engineers” about the way in which to go about it, Umeki said.

The overall project is called FINAST, which is the Swedish acronym for Research and Innovation in Norrbotten for Advanced Green Steel Production and Manufacture. It is headed up by professor Jens Hardell at LTU Machine Elements.

“I think that the FINAST project is a fantastic example of Bio4Energy and CH2ESS joining forces”, said professor Lundgren; with reference to LTU’s Centre for Hydrogen Energy Systems Sweden. It has the aim to integrate production, storage and transport of hydrogen in an optimal way and includes process integration in relation to the electrical power system. 

Contacts

Kentaro Umeki, Bio4Energy Thermochemical Conversion, affiliation with Luleå University of Technology

Joakim Lundgren, Bio4Energy Systems Analysis and Bioeconomy, affiliation with Luleå University of Technology

Bio4Energy scientists Kristiina Oksman (left) and Linn Berglund are showing slivers of the brown kelp used as input material, at their research laboratory.LTU

Breakthrough Innovation: Hydrogels from Norwegian Kelp to Be Commercialised

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Bio4Energy researchers are behind a breakthrough innovation that can be used to make bio-based and biodegradable hydrogels.

Hydrogels are key components in materials used to restore or maintain human health such as wound healing, tissue engineering, artificial organs or everyday contact lenses.

The ingenuity of hydrogels lies in a dichotomy: While they are able to absorb and hold water, they do not decompose as a result.

However, as much as hydrogels are an indispensable part of modern medicine, today only synthetic hydrogels of the kind desired are available on the market and they are resource-intensive to produce, according to an article at the website of Luleå University of Technology, where the Bio4Energy researchers work.

Applying nanotechnology to brown algae grown in Norwegian waters, scientists Kristiina Oksman and Linn Berglund were able to skip steps that are paramount to making hydrogels of the synthetic kind. This means that the new bio-based technology requires less energy at production and generates less waste.

Nano-scale processing of the starting material also means that good quality hydrogel can be ascertained, as the cellulose is separated into ultra-small fibres and desirable qualities of the alginate salts are retained.

Alginor ASA, a Norwegian firm, has bought the resulting patent and are constructing a processing plant for this type of brown kelp, Laminaria Hyperboream.

“Alginor ASA wants to use the method to make full use of the harvest of Laminaria Hyperborea, or brown kelp, a species that is common in Norwegian waters”, professor Oksman said.

Contacts

Linn Berglund — Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion, affiliation with Luleå University of Technology

Kristiina Oksman – Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion, affiliation with Luleå University of Technology

Scientific article

No scientific literature has been disclosed.

Examples of Bio4Energy projects involving similar technologies can be found here:

Field trials of growing genetically modified aspen trees in Sweden. Photo by courtesy of Ewa Mellerowicz.Bio4Energy

Field Trials Confirm: Aspen Trees May be Modified for Easier Access for Biorefinery Production

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Field trials of transgenic aspen trees have confirmed that genetic modification is indeed a possible avenue for rendering wood less resistant to breakdown into components suitable for making biofuel, “green” chemicals or bio-based materials.

Research just out shows not only how to modify tree plants for superior yield of desired sugar-based content, but also offers industry or investors proof-of-concept results from pilot-scale trials performed for the most successful combinations or “constructs” in science speak.

Most innovations require Proof of Concept to survive past the early stages of product development. It is a formalised way of providing evidence that demonstrates that a design concept or business proposal is feasible.

For the last decade, Bio4Energy has shepherded field trials of hardwood species such as aspen, under the leadership of professor Ewa Mellerowicz, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Collaboration partners include programme manager Leif Jönsson’s research team at Umeå University, as well as Bio4Energy research leaders at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden, the Wallenberg Wood Science Centre and others.

The results are expected to bring considerable benefit to the scientific community, given that no less than 32 so-called lines of genetically modified aspen trees previously evaluated only in greenhouse trials, have been grown and studied for five years in field plantations in Sweden.

“Whereas there are many examples of genetically modified trees that are improved in the greenhouse experiments, the trees with improved properties in the field are exceptional”, Mellerowicz told Bio4Energy Communications.

The fact that the field trials used material pre-selected from extensive greenhouse experiments, testing very large numbers of constructs, let the scientists bring about optimal results in the field. This way, the trees grew faster (produced more wood) and were more ready to release sugar-rich polymers, which are desired input materials for making biorefinery products.

“By [implementing a] systematic long-term and multi-level testing strategy, we were able to identify certain unknown function genes that improve field productivity and saccharification yield”, according to Mellerowicz.

Moreover the best transgenic lines were processed in a pilot-scale reactor, mimicking industrial conditions, to provide proof of concept for the strategy.

“The identified genes will be of particular interest to modify, using non-transgenic approaches to produce feedstocks that are GMO free, but have improved performance in the field and in the biorefinery”, she said.

This means that more research is needed before the findings can be demonstrated as a new technology, but the advantage created is that genes have been identified that could be targets for it.

Contact

Ewa Mellerowicz, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences — Bio4Energy Forest-based Feedstocks, affiliation with the Umeå Plant Science Centre

Scientific article

The article Field testing of transgenic aspen from large greenhouse screening identifies unexpected winners, is published in the Plant Biotechnology Journal January 2023.

The authors are acknowledged as follows: Donev EN, Derba-Maceluch M, Yassin Z, Gandla ML, Sivan P, Heinonen SE, Kumar V, Scheepers G, Vilaplana F, Johansson U, Hertzberg M, Sundberg B, Winestrand S, Hörnberg A, Alriksson B, Jönsson LJ and Mellerowicz EJ.

Algae production at Dåva, Umeå, Sweden. Photo by courtesy of Francesco Gentili.

New Projects Supported by Bio4Energy Strategic Funds

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Twenty per cent of all funding to Bio4Energy is set aside as Strategic Funds used to create synergies, explore and address new and important avenues of research. In 2023, several such strategic projects will be launched, following a call for funding during the autumn. The first two projects started on 1 January 2023, with additional projects coming up later.

The project “Circular and sustainable production of bioplastics with the help of photosynthetic microorganisms – Proof of concept”, aims to investigate the feasibility of feeding carbohydrates produced by photosynthetic microalgae to bacteria producing polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) at pilot scale in northern Sweden. PHB is a promising material for producing biodegradable plastics, and in this proof-of-concept project the PHB production will be studied and optimised, in order to enable a successful implementation at industrial scale. Francesco Gentili at SLU heads the project, which is a collaboration between researchers at SLU, UmU, and RISE Processum.

The second project, “Trade-off between wood quantity and quality in response to nitrogen fertilization – Is there a breaking point for beneficial nitrogen level in boreal forests?”, will investigate the relationship between volume growth and wood quality in response to nitrogen fertilization in both Norway spruce and aspen. The goal is to identify optimal fertilization regimes that balance between volume growth and wood quality of forest feedstocks in different locations in Sweden. This will pave the way for feedstock with beneficial qualitative properties, without compromising the growth of the trees, even in poor and abandoned soils. The project, which is led by Hannele Tuominen at SLU, is a collaboration between SLU, UmU and RISE. More information about Bio4Energy’s strategic funds and projects, including a list of ongoing and finalised projects, can be found under this link.

Text by the Bio4Energy programme managers and deputy programme manager

Season Greeting from Bio4Energy. Collage and photos by Anna Strom ©2022.©AnnaStrom

Season’s Greetings from Bio4Energy

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Bio4Energy wants to wish its members and followers a

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

What have you got coming for 2023?

Bio4Energy has more research and development, a new course in the Bio4Energy Graduate School, as well as a continued aim for excellence and usefulness of results produced.

We hope that you will want to stay tuned!

Dimitris Athanassiadis, Bio4Energy Systems Analysis and Bioeconomy, is new coordinator of the Graduate School.©AnnaStrom

New Coordinator for Graduate School: Course Starts in 2024

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The Bio4Energy Graduate School, with flagship training on biorefinery demonstration and systems analysis of biomass resources, has a new coordinator.

Dimitris Athanassiadis of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) at Umeå is taking over from Sylvia Larsson, who has moved on to industry and is working at MoRe Research, Örnsköldsvik.

Athanassiadis is not only an associate professor, but also has longstanding experience of coordinating higher education initiatives and most recently a graduate school at his home organisation SLU.

“It feels like I have had a lot of practise already at the Faculty of Forest Sciences.

“You really can help PhD students—and at the same time Bio4Energy—with networking and [with shaping their] education… by providing them with information about courses they may not realise are available and giving access to each other”, he said.

Athanassiadis envisages creating short webinars, organising site visits to companies in the sector or even arranging seminars.

As for the generic courses of the Bio4Energy Graduate School, he is planning to launch new editions of both during 2024. Biorefinery Pilot Research will be given in spring and Systems’ Perspectives on Biomass Resources in autumn.

For advanced students interested in furthering their education with the research environment, he advises candidates to contact research leaders in Bio4Energy whose work remit corresponds to the candidate’s topical area of interest.

Open positions will be announced via Bio4Energy’s website, he adds.

Most plastics are made from petrochemicals. Could they be recycled using a bio-based process? Photo by ©Anna Strom.©Anna Strom

Recycling of Plastics and Forest Management Under Loup in New Projects

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While a part of the research community is trying to develop plastics from bio-based materials; as an alternative to petrochemicals; a group of Bio4Energy researchers are looking at how to reuse or recycle traditional plastic using bio-based processes. Two projects were granted last month, one by the national funders Swedish Research Council and more recently by Formas.

Here we acknowledge Bio4Energy researchers who won projects from Formas, in its annual round of grants.

  • Bioholistic: Developing integrated bioprocesses for a holistic chemical recycling of plastics, Leonidas Matsakas, Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion at Luleå University of Technology (LTU). Co-applicants at LTU are Alok Patel, Io Antonopoulou, Ulrika Rova and Paul Christakopoulos.
  • Browsing tolerant trees, Henrik Böhlenius, Bio4Energy Forest-based Feedstock at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). His collaboration partners are Stefan Jansson of Umeå University and Michelle Cleary of SLU.
  • Can the soil priming effect enhance plant growth under elevated CO2 by alleviating nutrient limitation? Sandra Jämtgård, Bio4Energy Environment and Nutrient Recycling at SLU. Her co-applicant is Oskar Franklin of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Austria.