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A Bio4Energy scientist at Umeå University (UmU) has won funds for conducting research that will feed into a Trash to Gas initiative started in 2012 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and which will be stepped up in connection with the preparations of NASA astronauts' first-ever manned trip to the planet Mars in the 2030s. The trip to outer space is longer and further from Earth than any of NASA's previous manned trips and implies new challenges when it comes to handling and disposal of waste such as used garments and towels, spent food packaging, human waste and paper products. Notably, whatever is leftover cannot be smelly, nor bulky and, ideally, should be recycled for re-use.

Researchers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center have built a prototype reactor
designed to make something useful from the trash astronauts accumulate in space.
The device incinerates garbage to produce methane, oxygen and water--which can
be used for rocket fuel, breathing air and for life support. Original video clip and
report by George Diller posted on Youtube, 20 March 2013.

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Waste collage Pic cred MarEdoAre mixed combustion fuels, based on different types of waste and designed for specific purposes, a thing of the future? Photos by courtesy of Mar Edo.In Sweden, toxic emissions to air from incineration of domestically-sourced municipal solid waste are generally well controlled. Moreover, in accordance with the waste hierarchy adopted by the European Union in its 2008 Waste Framework Directive, re-use and recycling are favoured above recovery. Sweden thus manages to do away with about half of the total 4.4 million tonnes of waste generated annually by its households, institutions and commercial actors before the incineration option is put to use.

However, heat recovery and electricity generation following waste incineration has become a business and the country has the capacity to burn more household waste than the 2.3 million tonnes that its citizens supply. In 2015 alone, 1.3 million tonnes of waste were imported, mainly from other European countries, and used for such waste-to-energy recovery. And when waste becomes an industry in itself, there are bound to be actors out there thinking about how to make it cleaner and finding new uses for the refuse by integrating different technologies.

For instance, staff at Vafab Miljö, a Swedish regional waste utility, have been working with Bio4Energy researchers to find ways to blend household waste and recovered wood, learning about the mixtures behaviour as a feedstock by studying its properties and testing various mechanical pre-treatments and turned the mixed waste into fuel. In the project, carried out in collaboration with Bio4Energy partner Umeå University's Industrial Doctoral School, PhD student This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. has evaluated a range of fuel blends.

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StinaJansson 1508Bio4Energy researcher Stina Jansson will contribute to a Trash to Gas project by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, in its preparations for sending humans into deep space aboard its International Space Station. Photo by Bio4Energy.A Bio4Energy scientist at Umeå University has won funds for conducting research that will feed into a Trash to Gas initiative started in 2012 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and which will be stepped up in connection with the preparations of NASA astronauts' first-ever manned trip to the planet Mars in the 2030s.

A PI on the R&D platform Bio4Energy Environment and Nutrient Recycling, UmU associate professor This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.will contribute to Trash to Gas with results from her new project Thermal Treatment of Waste Materials into Carbon Materials and Gaseous Fuels. Vinnova, Sweden's innovation agency, supports the latter project which, in turn, is part of the European Union grant scheme Marie Curie Academy Outgoing Researcher.

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KU bio4energy seBio4Energy researcher Kentaro Umeki has won a Gunnar Öquist Fellowship 2016, which grants him funds and the mentorship of well-respected Swedish plant physiologist Gunnar Öquist. Photo by courtesy of Kentaro Umeki.Bio4Energy researcher This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., recruited into Bio4Energy in 2011 and placed at the Luleå University of Technology (LTU) in northern Sweden, last week received an award named for the well-respected Swedish scientist Gunnar Öquist, who is a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences and a plant physiologist the Umeå Plant Science Centre.

Funding body the Kempe Foundations supports the fellowship and awards it on an annual basis for the purpose of "supporting young researchers early in their career", according to a press release from the LTU. The Gunnar Öquist Fellowship consists of a SEK3 million (€310,000) kroner award to be used for research activities, as well as a personal prize of SEK50,000 kroner, and the mentorship for three years of professor emeritus Öquist. For the third time since the awarding of the fellowship started five years ago, it goes to a Bio4Energy scientist. Previous Bio4Energy awardees are Judith Felten and Edouard Pesquet, both of the research and development platform Bio4Energy Feedstock.

"It feels great! It’s a confidence boost and some kind of sign that the LTU believes in me. It shows that I grew in the last five years", Umeki said.

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Bio4energy cmykThe research environment Bio4Energy has been granted a continuation of it activities at least until the end of 2020.

This has been confirmed with the unfolding of events this week, starting with the release of the Swedish government's proposal for research and innovation work by the academy and research institutes for the years 2017-2020, and confirmation by the vice chancellor's advisor on infrastructure issues at Umeå University, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., that the university will keep directing the corresponding funding to Bio4Energy.

"In line with the government directives, the strategic research areas hosted by Umeå University will continue. However, this is on the condition that you continue having a set aside, strategic funds, so that we will be able to adjust our activities in accordance with any new directives that the government may specify" in its forthcoming Letter of Regulation, said Sommarin, who is also chair of the Bio4Energy Board, commenting on the research bill.

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KO B4E 2 Kick off Photo by Anna StromBio4Energy expert on bio-based applications created using nanotechnology, Kristiina Oksman, has won this year's Nordea Science Prize. Photo by Anna Strom©.The Nordea Science Prize 2016 has been awarded Bio4Energy researcher This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., professor at the Luleå University of Technology (LTU). She received it during a prize ceremony held last weekend at Luleå in northern Sweden. It is the Swedish bank Nordea, in cooperation with the LTU vice-chancellor and deans, who decide on and hand out the prize each year to a scientist who has made "outstanding contributions to the promotion of scientific research and development" and who has been "a good representative [of] the university", according to a press release from the LTU.

"When they first called me [to announce the prize] I couldn't believe it was true. This is such a great encouragement. I am very happy", said Oksman whose research group creates nanocellulose applications and bio-based composites materials using nanotechnology. Oksman was a platform leader in Bio4Energy between the years 2010 and 2015. Currently she and her group are members of the research and development platform Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion Technologies.

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TL MT SL AS11116Bio4Energy researchers Torbjörn Lestander (left), Mikael Thyrel and Sylvia Larsson won funding for a test-bed pilot which technology is expected to be essential for the efficient operation of biorefineries and biomass combustion facilities. Photo by Bio4Energy.

An instrument that can help biorefinery industry and bioenergy utilities detect and remove or neutralise elements that scupper the process or pollute the environment directly as the biomass is fed into the conversion or combustion process. It sounds like every industrial operator's dream, does it not?

For operators in northern Sweden it could come true within a few years, thanks to funding just granted to Bio4Energy researchers for the purchase of a new instrument drawing on neutron technology for the rapid and advanced online characterisation of woody materials, biomass ash and organic waste. 

"The instrument allows for a considerable advancement when it comes to technology since the neutrons have a depth of penetration of tens of centimetres into the test material, which opens up the possibility rapidly to characterise large volumes of heterogeneous material", the researchers from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) say in their application to the funding provider, the Kempe Foundations.

"This means that the technology can be placed on a conveyor belt which makes it a true online technique with a large potential to realise the necessary characterisation needed for process control in resource-efficient and flexible biorefineries of the future", they go on.

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Phosphorus Google 41116Plants need phosphorus to grow and of a kind that they can assimilate. Photo by courtesy of Google Images (4 November).Thanks to new grants from the Swedish Research Council, three new projects can go ahead in Bio4Energy aimed at developing cost-efficient and clean technologies for biogas or synthesis gas scrubbing, which can serve as alternatives to similar technologies based on the use non-renewable fossil fuels. In addition, Bio4Energy's flagship project on phosphorus recovery and removal of contaminants from waste sludge can be taken a step further towards implementation of the technology on a commercial scale.

Funding from the Council, known by its acronym VR, generally aims to support frontline fundamental research that brings new knowledge to the research community. Receiving a grant from VR is considered as being something highly prestigious. The four projects will be run by PIs on the platforms Bio4Energy Chemical Catalysis and Separation Technologies (Mattias Grahn and Jyri-Pekka Mikkola, respectively), Bio4Energy Thermochemical Conversion Technologies (Marcus Öhman) and Bio4Energy System Analysis and Bioeconomy (Xiaoyan Ji):

Calendar

May

Mon. 21 May, 2018 12:00 Bio4Energy Researchers' Meeting, Piteå, Sweden Events , General

Thu. 3 May, 2018 11:00 International Conference on Renewable Energy Gas Technology, Toulouse, France Events , General

Mon. 7 May, 2018 13:00 Bio4Energy Steering Group Meeting, by phone Events , General

Mon. 14 May, 2018 11:00 European Biomass Conference & Exhibition, Copenhagen, Denmark Events , General

Wed. 16 May, 2018 9:00 Biofuel Region Årsstämma, Skellefteå, Sweden Events , General

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In the Press

Why we need ecological biofuels, Parliament Magazine
Support for seaweed-into-biofuel project, Morning AgClips/Colorado State University
Detaljer om Reduktionsplikten klara - biodrivmedel ska ge minskade utsläpp från transporter, Bioenergitidningen
"Gröna kolväten" ska skapa oljefria drivmedel, Sveriges Radio P4 Västerbotten