Tag Archive for: Bio4Energy Research Environment

Happy Midsummer

2024 Bio4Energy Annual Report Is Out

The 2024 Bio4Energy Annual Report is now available on our website.

The past year clearly reflects the continued strength and activity within our research environment. In fact, 2024 stands out as a record year for collaboration, with more reported external partners than ever before. It also came close to setting a new record for the number of completed PhD dissertations – a clear testament to the drive, engagement, and research quality across our platforms.

As many of us now head into a well-deserved summer break, we are already looking forward to kicking off the autumn semester with renewed energy at the Bio4Energy Advisory Board meeting in Piteå in early September.

The Bio4Energy management and coordination team wishes all partners and colleagues a joyful Midsummer and a well-deserved summer break!

Bio4Energy Gathers in Luleå to Strengthen Collaboration and Share Research Progress

Bio4Energy researchers came together in Luleå on 26–27 May 2025 for the biannual Researchers’ Meeting, an occasion to share scientific insights, discuss future directions, and reinforce the strong collaborative spirit that defines the Bio4Energy research environment.

Dinner at Hotel Clarion Sense, where participants enjoyed great food and conversation in a relaxed setting.
Dinner at Hotel Clarion Sense, where participants enjoyed great food and conversation in a relaxed setting.

Around 60 participants took part in the event, which began with a shared dinner at Hotel Clarion Sense. The informal setting offered an opportunity to reconnect across institutions and platforms. The following day, the formal programme featured presentations from Bio4Energy’s seven research platforms, highlighting recent progress in areas such as sustainable feedstocks, biorefinery development, life-cycle assessment, and industrial implementation.

The afternoon programme opened with a series of engaging presentations, showcasing selected projects supported through Bio4Energy’s strategic funds. The talks sparked several interesting questions from the audience. This was followed by a focused workshop session, where participants collaborated in small groups to develop cross-platform Theme Reports on topics of high societal relevance — including hydrogen, biochar, bioeconomy, and nutrient recirculation. These reports are intended to increase the visibility and societal impact of Bio4Energy’s work, by clearly demonstrating its relevance to policy, industry, and the public, particularly through outreach channels such as media and strategic dialogues with decision-makers.

The meeting served not only as a platform for knowledge exchange but also as a reminder of the importance of cross-platform collaboration in tackling the challenges of a sustainable industrial transition.

Bio4Energy would like to thank all participants for their valuable contributions, and all organisers involved in making this spring’s meeting a success.

Here some pictures from event:

New Bio+ Projects to Bio4Energy Researchers

Bio+ is a research and innovation program funded by the Swedish Energy Agency, with the aim to develop bio-based solutions and value chains as well as increase knowledge and competence about how these should interact with each other and with other energy systems.

Three new projects recently granted funding within the program are lead by Bio4Energy researchers::

  • Online optimization of biomass high-temperature energy conversion processes
    Alexey Sepman, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden – Bio4Energy Thermochemical Conversion.

    The project aims to develop and apply new software that integrates diagnostic sensors based on tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy, direct imaging techniques, and machine learning. The software will provide online real-time data on conversion efficiency, biomass moisture content, fuel feeding variation, and emissions in Swedish bio-based pilot and full-scale plants. The data will be used to perform feedback control and propose optimized operating practices for these plants. The expected outcome is the improvement of process efficiency and flexibility, reduction of pollutant emissions, along with increased digitalization in industry.
  • Policies for a long-term and sustainable raw material supply of forest biomass
    Robert Lundmark, Luleå University of Technology – Bio4Energy Systems Analysis and Bioeconomy.

    The project analyzes consequences of complex interaction between changes in different variables on forest-based raw material supply, and develops new and innovative methods to be able to provide holistic and comprehensive insights for a long-term and sustainable supply of raw materials. Time-dynamic and spatial development are presented in scenario descriptions and analyzed from a social science perspective, something that is missing today.
  • Upgrading of biobased pyrolysis oil in existing refinery infrastructure
    Linda Sandström, RISE Research Institutes of Sweden – Bio4Energy Thermochemical Conversion.

    This project will investigate and further develop a concept called derivatization, where pyrolysis oil is reacted with a renewable oil, such as tall oil, and thereby forms a more stable product. The derivatized product is miscible with fossil oil and can be co-refined with these. The derivatization concept will be investigated experimentally and technoeconomically and a suggested industrial process for the concept will be developed.

Season’s Greetings from Bio4Energy

As the season draws to a close, Bio4Energy wants to wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

This will be the last news post from Bio4Energy, from this publisher. Communications Anna Strom is leaving Bio4Energy at the end of 2024, but plans to be available by e-mail until the last week of January 2025. Please click the link below, to contact her.

Greatest thanks for this time to our researchers, collaboration partners, stakeholders, friends and colleagues. 

With best regards,

Anna Strom

Bio4Energy Contact
Anna Strom, Bio4Energy Communications

Large Project Granted for Making Affordable Bio-based Plastics, Using Algae as Feed

A consortium of Bio4Energy researchers has scored a grant for developing bio-based plastic to deliver prototypes of consumer products by project end, three years from now.

It involves a number of industrial and business partners who will provide either facilities and input material for experimental trials or develop consumer products, such as lampshade prototypes and a foam to go into packaging materials, respectively. The resulting products will be tested for their biodegradability.

It involves a number of industrial and business partners who will provide either facilities and input material for experimental trials or develop consumer products, such as lampshade prototypes and a foam to go into packaging materials, respectively. The resulting products will be tested for their biodegradability.

Global plastics production has exploded since the early 20th century and virtually all of it derives from fossil-based petrochemicals. In 2018, it stood at 359 million metric tons per annum.

At the end of life, over three fourths of plastics go into landfill. The breakdown of plastic made from petrochemicals generally takes hundreds of years and comes with leakage into the environment, especially for the kinds that degrade to microplastics during the composting process.

Plastic pollution has become an urgent global problem.

Innovation-to-consumer product value chain

In northern Sweden, Bio4Energy experts on the development and use of algae biomass for products and applications are proposing to tackle the issue head on by linking up actors in a research innovation-to-consumer product value chain.

The Swedish Energy Agency—which is not only a government agency, but also a research funder—has agreed to part sponsor the development of more affordable polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), which is a type of bio polyester that has the moldability of traditional plastics.

So far, PHA as a plastic alternative has had limited uptake, mainly because of the high cost of the feed for bacteria that make it. Here is where the Bio4Energy research comes in.

The scientists will identify strains of microalgae which, using sunlight and carbon dioxide, make biomass that the bacteria like to eat. The algae themselves will feed off industrial flue gases and wastewater produced at premises of regional energy utility Umeå Energi, which the green algae help clean during the while.

The scientists will identify strains of microalgae which, using sunlight and carbon dioxide (CO2), make biomass that the bacteria like to eat. The algae themselves will feed off industrial flue gases and wastewater produced at premises of regional energy utility Umeå Energi, which the green algae help clean during the while. The project also involves a utility that delivers drinking water, as well as handles sewage water treatment and waste recycling in the greater Umeå area; Vakin.

Algae research expert Christiane Funk will lead the project from Umeå University (UMU) and collaborate with Francesco Gentili, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), whose team operates development facilities at the Umeå Energi Dåva site. His colleague Carmen Cristescu will perform a life cycle assessment of the process. Bio4Energy programme manager Leif Jönsson’s group at UMU is also part of the project.

“We are going to use algae as feed for bacteria producing PHA, a type of bio polyester. The bacterial cultivation will be scaled up to litres by RISE Processum”, professor Funk said.

Membership company Processum at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden is one Bio4Energy’s strategic partners. Bio4Energy alumnus Pooja Dixit will lead this part of the work.

High cost of PHA limits market uptake

PHA as an alternative to petrochemical polymers for plastic production has had limited market uptake because of its high cost.

“It would be perfect to use PHA instead of plastic. We try to make it cheaper so that PHA can compete with fossil-based plastic and we also try to make the process more sustainable by using microalgae. We have to test which bacteria like which type of sugars [or carbohydrates] to produce PHA”, professor Funk said.

“It would be perfect to use PHA instead of plastic. We try to make it cheaper so that PHA can compete with fossil-based plastic and we also try to make the process more sustainable by using microalgae. We have to test which bacteria like which type of sugars to produce PHA”.

Downstream, two companies stand ready to turn the PHA into products.

In Stockholm, Interested Times Gang will take PHA from the project, to attempt 3D printing lampshades.

SME Cass Materials at Örnsköldsvik aim to mix the PHA with starch to improve an existing form of packing material in terms of its environmental footprint. The company describes the material as a “next generation bio-based foam that is lightweight with good mechanical strength and insulation properties for the packaging industry”.

Finally, Biocompost of Skellefteå is going to test the materials produced, particularly the ones that have a starch component, to see how long they take to biodegrade.

“We are going to work on the microalgae and the bacteria… and feed the carbohydrate to the bacteria in a two-step process”, Funk explained;

“We are going to test different algal strains [to ascertain] which produce the best feed for the bacteria”.

Globally, nine per cent of plastic waste is recycled and 12 per cent is incinerated. In countries that have ocean shorelines, each year between 4.8 million and 12.7 million metric tons of plastic waste are discarded into the sea. Source: Encylopaedia Britannica.

Project title: Waste2Plastic – Circular economy, recycling of CO2, nitrogen, phosphorus and water for bioplastics in a sustainable society

Funders: Swedish Energy Agency’s strategic innovation program RE:Source, which focuses on developing circular and resource-efficient material flows that are within planetary “boundaries”. The joint contribution of industrial partners is expected to match the SEA grant.

Bio4Energy research leaders involved

Christiane Funk, project manager and Leif Jönsson – Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion, affiliation with Umeå University

Francesco Gentili – Bio4Energy Environment and Nutrient Recycling, affiliation with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Carmen Cristescu – Bio4Energy Systems Analysis and Bioeconomy, affiliation with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Lalie Kossatz and Pooja Dixit – Processum at RISE

Business partners: Umeå Energi, Vakin, Cass Materials, ITG Studio, Biocompost

Related projects

Circular and sustainable production of bioplastics with the help of photosynthetic microorganisms – Proof of concept – Bio4Energy

Waste2Plastic – Production of bioplastic from algal biomass generated from wastewater – Bio4Energy

Related news

Microalgae that Thrive in Cold Climate Clean Wastewater, Give Biomass for Renewable Plastics – Bio4Energy

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

Breakthrough Innovation: Hydrogels from Norwegian Kelp to Be Commercialised – Bio4Energy

Systems’ Perspective Needed in Societal Transition Research: Course Start

The application is open to Bio4Energy’s generic course Systems’ Perspectives on Biomass Resources. It is a training about systems analysis of bio-based technologies, processes and systems.

“You learn to develop a holistic perspective; to see the big picture. This is important for all researchers and not only when it comes to bioenergy, although this is the topic of this course”, said Elisabeth Wetterlund, professor at Luleå University of Technology (LTU), who is new course coordinator.

“You learn to develop a holistic perspective; to see the big picture. This is important for all researchers and not only when it comes to bioenergy, although this is the topic of this course”.

“It is both about learning to apply a systems’ perspective… and learning to put one’s own research into a wider context. This is particularly important when the research is about technology, phenomena or processes related to [societal] transition”, Wetterlund wrote in an e-mail reply to Communications.

Given that Wetterlund is also deputy manager of the research programme part of Bio4Energy, she should know.

Unique benefit that went from shut shop to open

The Systems’ Perspectives training is part of the Bio4Energy Graduate School on the Innovative Use of Biomass. At the beginnings of the research environment, the Graduate School was reserved for its own advanced student – PhDs and postdoctoral fellows.

In 2014, however, the Bio4Enery Board took the decision to open it to advanced students in Sweden and to interested professionals in the biorefinery and bioenergy sector. The reasoning behind it was basically that some things are too precious not to be shared.

“Bio4Energy has a national mission to contribute technology to produce liquid fuels… This is a strategic decision. We will embrace the rest of the country in a first step that is national. In a second step we should strive to build an international graduate school”, LTU vice-chancellor at the time, Johan Sterte, commented.

And so it was. With a growing membership and Bio4Energy establishing itself as a leading research environment—making methods and tools for developing advanced biofuels, “green” chemicals and smart bio-based materials—the decision was made to open the door to advanced students everywhere, so long as they were affiliated with an accredited institution of higher learning.

“You are in a context and together with others who do similar things as yourself; in this case bioenergy, biorefinery and the like… which gives a cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary perspective”.

First week of course is on location in northern Sweden

The first week and last day of course will be on location at Luleå in northern Sweden; 11-15 November and 11 March, respectively.

In between those dates, students will need to put time aside for distance learning in the form of online lectures and project work. Wetterlund, for her part, will be assisted in her coordinatorship by a very seasoned systems analysis expert, LTU professor Joakim Lundgren.

The two have taken turns with Robert Lundmark, economics professor at LTU, to teach and lead the course.

“You are in a context and together with others who do similar things as yourself; in this case bioenergy, biorefinery and the like… which gives a cross-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary perspective”, Wetterlund said.

Contacts

Elisabeth Wetterlund and Joakim Lundgren — Course coordinator Systems’ Perspectives on Biomass Resources

Dimitris Athanassiadis — Coordinator of the Bio4Energy Graduate School

For more information

Course Start: Systems’ Perspectives on Biomass Resources – Bio4Energy

Info Sheet: Systems’ Perspectives on Biomass Resources

Bio4Energy Graduate School – Bio4Energy

Related News

Bio4Energy Graduate School: Development of Biorefinery Innovations Up Next – Bio4Energy

Bio4Energy Advisory Board with guests Alice Kempe, Karin Johnson, 3 September 2024.

May We Tell You About Bio4Energy Advisory Board?

The Bio4Energy Advisory Board, made up of ten distinguished representatives of the bioenergy and biorefinery sector in Sweden, was designed as a sounding board to the Bio4Energy Board and programme managers whose joint task is to administer and monitor the agenda of the research environment and its funding.

It met at Örnsköldsvik, Sweden this week to learn about the giant pilot hall being set afoot at the Domsjoe Development Cluster. On the cards for the new Bioeconomy Arena are 130 – 150 test beds for trial running and evaluating bio-based processes in increasingly large steps up to near industrial level.

Bio4Energy Advisory Board and guests met at Örnsköldsvik, Sweden this week to learn about the giant pilot hall being set afoot at the Domsjoe Development Cluster. On the cards for the new Bioeconomy Arena are 130 – 150 test beds for trial running and evaluating new bio-based processes in increasingly large steps up to near industrial level.

Pulping, chemicals, carbon capture and storage, carbon capture and use, as well as industrial biotechnology; will be the focal areas of this site for testing and scale up of bio-based innovations.

The fact that the Advisory Board is an internal and a consultative body, has come to mean that input to its discussions are not shared publicly. However, its mission is.

“I like the idea of the Advisory Board, if it is used as intended from the start: As an advisory body to the researchers’ agenda”, said Peter Axegård, who has been a member from the start five years ago.

“I take part to learn about what you are doing and enjoy [following] the development of young researchers. New knowledge and motivated researchers [are] what matters most to me”, he added.

Axegård has held a string of leadership positions in the sector, including at partner institutes to the current RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. Today he serves as CEO of a startup in the sector, FineCell; where they develop a process for the production of nano cellulose called CellOx.

Bio4Energy Industrial Network

At the start of Bio4Energy, the academic leadership fostered close links with an industrial network of companies and regional level organisations that either promote or contribute directly to developing a bioeconomy for Sweden. Most of these organisations are still cherished collaboration partners to the approximately 225 Bio4Energy researchers.

However, because the research environment and its agenda have been steadily growing, it was thought necessary to bring a different structure to the links with and input from industry and the sector.

The Bio4Energy Advisory Board was drawn together with the aim of forming a consultative body to the Board of the research environment, with deep knowledge of the corresponding industrial sector.

The Bio4Energy Advisory Board was drawn together with the aim of forming a consultative body to the Board of the research environment, with deep knowledge of the corresponding industrial sector. It has become an institution in itself and convenes in biannual seminars.

We hope, at the next opportunity, to include comment from the Bio4Energy Board.

For more information

Bio4Energy Advisory Board – Bio4Energy

Related news

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

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

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

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

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

Related News

RISE to Invest SEK350 Million in Its Biorefinery Test Bed Environments

Contact Biorefinery Arena

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

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

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

Related News

Bio4Energy Graduate School: Development of Biorefinery Innovations Up Next

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