Linn Berglund, senior lecturer in wood and bionanocomposites at Luleå University of Technology and part of the Bio4Energy research environment, has been awarded a multi-million SEK grant from the Jubileumsfonden to pursue a high-risk, high-reward research project.
Her research explores how forest industry residues can be refined into nanocellulose, a highly promising material for advanced applications in both medical technology and energy storage. The project focuses on understanding how processing affects the structure and functional properties of the materials, aiming to tailor bio-based solutions for specific end-uses like wound dressings and battery components.
“This project opens the door for interdisciplinary research that will provide valuable insights into the relationship between process, structure, and function in bio-based materials,” says Berglund. “In the long term, this knowledge can support the development of sustainable, high-performance materials adapted to modern needs.”
The funding is part of a university initiative to support bold and transformative research ideas with long-term societal relevance. Berglund’s project was selected from a highly competitive national pool of proposals.
Bio4Energy warmly congratulates Linn Berglund and looks forward to supporting the development of this pioneering research, rooted in renewable forest resources and contributing to a circular bioeconomy.
https://bio4energy.se/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Linn2.jpg8332112Irina Iakovlevahttps://bio4energy.se/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Logo_stor_farg-300x74.pngIrina Iakovleva2025-06-09 09:18:432025-06-09 09:18:43Transforming Forest Residues into the Future: Bio4Energy Researcher Awarded Prestigious Grant
Bio4Energy scientists and partners are offering an opportunity for researchers to learn more about the benefits of applying for time to make experiments aided by brilliant X-ray light, at so-called synchrotron facilities, to study the inside of materials.
The partners are hosting a workshop 27 November at Umeå, Sweden; both for on-site and online participation. Sweden, where the scientists are based, is host to the world’s first fourth-generations synchrotron, the MAX IV Laboratory at Lund.
Synchrotrons are machines—giant particle accelerators—imagined as a tool for advancing science beyond what the forefathers of science deemed possible. With the aid of specialised staff, guest researchers can have a material that they want to know X-rayed with powerful light beams to the point of literally knowing it inside out.
With the aid of specialised staff, guest researchers at synchrotrons can have a material that they want to know X-rayed with powerful light beams to the point of literally knowing it inside out.
“Synchrotrons are very much like Swiss army knives, but the various tools attached utilise the brilliant X-rays for almost all kinds of X-ray-based measurement techniques”, according to Nils Skoglund, associate professor at Umeå University.
“Each experimental station has [its] own set-up and is called a beamline, where there is great expertise in the specific analysis performed within the beamline staff”, he added.
The research environment Bio4Energy has two experienced synchrotron research coordinators in its ranks. Skoglund leads the research platform Environment and Nutrient Recycling, while Mikael Thyrel heads up Feedstock Pre-processing. Thyrel is also head of his university department at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
Endless possibilities forstudy and observation
From Skoglund’s platform, researchers have used beamline time thoroughly to investigate oxidation states of certain elements inside nutrient-carrying materials. They drew on the Balder beamline at MAX IV, for this undertaking. At DanMAX beamline they looked at the distribution of crystalline phosphates in 3D, for biomass ash and biochars. Biochar is charcoal, sometimes modified, that is intended for organic use, as in soil, says Wikipedia.
“These are just some examples of how Bio4Energy researchers utilise our large-scale research infrastructure where we are awarded beamtime in international competition”, Skoglund said.
Bio4Energy researchers have used beamline time to investigate oxidation states of certain elements inside nutrient-carrying materials and the distribution of crystalline phosphates in 3D, for biomass ash and biochar.
As the name of his research platform suggests, Skoglund scientific focus is nutrient and resource recovery from the energy sector. The team at his laboratory design renewable fuels and, by doing so, aim to alter the quality of ash remaining from combustion or gasification of biomass.
Whereas the scientific community has spent decades debating whether biomass ash should be ‘brought back’ to forest soils as a fertilizer, Skoglund has remained steadfast in his replies to Communications that it depends what is in the ash.
“Even though the goal is common, the desired fuel blend compositions are likely different for the forestry sector, agricultural sector, and waste streams from society”, he cautions on his university researcher’s profile.
As far as synchrotron research goes, Skoglund recommends a book by Swedish professor Jan-Erik Rubensson with the title of, Synchrotron Radiation – An everyday application of special relativity;
“So, it is not really correct to identify a specific type of research that could be conducted at a synchrotron—it is more about what phenomenon you want to observe with the brilliant X-ray light available”.
Video by courtesy of SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, California, U.S.A. With special thanks to SLAC for spreading knowledge and for the permission to republish.
https://bio4energy.se/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/SynchrotronRES_AS271124.jpg7201280Anna Stromhttps://bio4energy.se/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Logo_stor_farg-300x74.pngAnna Strom2024-11-20 16:18:332024-12-02 13:00:34Breaking Down Benefits of Using Brilliant X-ray Light to Know Bio-based Materials: Workshop
Bio4Energy experts at nanotechnology have been selected to receive an ‘Innovator of the Year’ award by their home organisation Luleå University of Technology, Sweden for their continued efforts to develop bio-based solutions for industry. The award motivation highlights the creation of medical and health care applications as a particularly successful avenue.
LTU pro vice-chancellor Charlotte Winberg will be handing over the award at the university’s Innovation Day 5 November.
“We are very happy about the award and will focus even more on innovations so that our research can benefit society”, researches Kristina Oksman and Linn Berglund wrote in a press release from LTU.
Moreover, a smart dressing for wound healing, made by turning woody residue into nanofibre networks that take the form of a transparent gel—complemented by an equally transparent film overlay—is in preclinical testing.
“What makes our innovations unique [are the fact] that they combine sustainability with versatility and functionality. We can tailor the biomaterials for different applications, making them useful in a variety of industries, from medicine to packaging”, associate professor Berglund said.
The List is published annually to indicate research innovations created at Swedish universities that could provide an economic and societal benefit, were they to be adopted by industry and commercialised.
Award motivation
“Oksman and Berglund’s work has great potential to contribute to societal benefits, particularly by reducing healthcare costs while also creating environmentally friendly alternatives for industry”, the press release said;
“Their bio-based solutions are not only energy-efficient to produce but can also replace oil-based materials, thereby reducing the use of fossil fuels and harmful chemicals”.
Recently, their Bionanocomposites’ research group has made bio-based films from woody residue after use as an underlying substance or layer for growing exotic mushrooms for human consumption. The mushrooms feed off this substrate layer to grow and break up the polymers of the wood during the while.
Recently, their Bionanocomposites’ research group has also made bio-based films from woody residue after use as an underlying substance or layer for growing exotic mushrooms for human consumption, in collaboration with Shaojun Xiong and colleagues at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
The mushrooms feed off this substrate layer to grow and break up the polymers of the wood during the while. This means that the researchers do not have to use chemicals to achieve their aim of breaking down the polymer lignin—the glue that binds together the main wood polymers cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin—since the mushroom carries out this service.
As part of the Bio4Energy research environment, Oksman and Berglund have gone from success to success. While Oksman was one of Bio4Energy’s founding research leaders, Berglund came in later as her student; rose through the ranks and never left since.
“Bio4Energy has been great for our research. We have had the freedom to invent new things. I do not think we could have done this without Bio4Energy”, Oksman told Bio4Energy Communications.
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
https://bio4energy.se/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/LB_KO_241024-scaled-e1729785232991.jpg12801706Anna Stromhttps://bio4energy.se/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Logo_stor_farg-300x74.pngAnna Strom2024-10-24 14:19:162024-12-01 18:16:38Innovator of Year Award to Bio4Energy Nanotechnology Experts
Bio4Energy’s core curriculum is contained in the courses of its Graduate School. The flagship training Biorefinery Pilot Research gives PhD students and postdoctoral fellows access to the unique park of pilot and demonstration facilities that line the coast of northeastern Sweden, when it comes to the production of advanced biofuels, “green” chemicals and bio-based materials.
Students construct and conduct their own projects to experience the innovation process hands on. First-hand access to professionals in industry and their peers allow for networking. Industry professionals are welcome to apply and to attend the course, to top up their knowledge with the latest in biorefinery development based on residues of woody biomass or organic waste.
A new edition of Biorefinery Pilot Research is scheduled for autumn 2024: End of August to October. First come, first serve!
Moreover, a much awaited new edition of Systems’ Perspectives on Biomass Resources will launch in autumn 2024. Students learn the basics of system analysis, by applying its principles on their own research projects. They also receive an overview of energy and sustainability issues on the global level, framed in the context of biorefinery development.
New course leaders as of November 2023 are Joakim Lundgren, Elisabeth Wetterlund and Andrea Toffolo; all three affiliated with Bio4Energy core partner Luleå University of Technology.
Finally, the new course History of Biorefining in Nordic Countries‘ paints the background of biorefinery development, as well as current trends and progress. Study visits and sessions on sustainability challenges alert students to the fact that we need to do better tomorrow to achieve circularity; efficient and effective production systems with low or no pollution escaping out into the environment.
Carmen Cristescu coordinates History of Biorefining, which just concluded in November this year, with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences at Umeå, as the hub for lectures and group assignments.
So say our students
PhD students Edouardo Arango-Durango and Mahsa Mehrara traveled from Luleå and the university there to attend the first-ever edition of the course.
“It has been amazing. I am from Colombia where forestry is different. Here [in Sweden] innovation is more advanced. It was an opportunity for me to learn”, Arango-Durango, Thermochemical Conversion, told Bio4Energy Communications at the end of lectures 27 October.
Standing beside him, Mehrara is part of Systems Analysis and Bioeconomy and, in her work, performs simulations to lay at the base of various research investigations.
“I joined because I wanted to know more about the background of my research. It is nice to know [what happens with] the feedstock in the real world”, she said.
“I liked the course, but it could be made more challenging”, Mehrara added.
https://bio4energy.se/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Bio4EnergyGradSchool_CourseStarts2024-scaled.jpg16092560Anna Stromhttps://bio4energy.se/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Logo_stor_farg-300x74.pngAnna Strom2023-12-13 15:51:232024-03-15 15:29:31Bio4Energy Graduate School: Development of Biorefinery Innovations Up Next
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