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JoakimLundgren Photo by AlanSherrardJoakim Lundgren gives a talk at a 2016 seminar by the Swedish Centre for Biomass Gasification. Photo by Alan Sherrard, Bioenergy International.The Swedish Centre for Biomass Gasification (SFC)—launched in 2011 to provide coordination of Sweden-based efforts to develop gasification of biomass into a viable alternative to fossil energy carriers—looks set to continue its operations for four more years. The much-awaited announcement came as a the Swedish Energy Agency confirmed its decision in a press release to provide provisional funding for another programme period, from 20 April 2017 to 19 April 2021. 

“The decision is wonderful news. We are so happy. We have achieved a lot in a short time, six years; and now we can build on it, provide an edge to the technology, according to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. who directs the centre since 2014.

Gasification of biomass, in which lignocellulosic feedstock is turned into synthesis gas and then converted to liquid biofuel or electricity, is taken to be one of the cleanest and most technology-ready options when it comes to renewable alternatives to fossil energy carriers. According to estimates outlined in a government-commissioned package of reports from 2013, one in three cars travelling on Swedish roads could be running on the new fuels in 2030. These could be renewable dimethyl ether, methanol, methane or synthetic diesel.

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Video by courtesy of the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations.

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WilfredVermerris MonicaNormark PhotobyAnnaStromMonica Normark, pictured at her thesis defence with Wilfred Vermerris, has taken up a position at Bio4Energy industrial partner SEKAB. Photo by Bio4Energy.Bio4Energy graduate and research engineer This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., previously with Bio4Energy’s group of experts on biochemical conversion technologies and industrial biotechnology, has scored a position with bioethanol developer SEKAB in northern Sweden, where she will be working to develop one of the company’s flagship inventions: the CelluAPP™.

“Monica Normark will be a great asset in our work. The CelluAPP™ makes it possible for companies to turn residual materials into marketable products. It’s a win-win situation for business and the environment”, said SEKAB E-Technology head of biorefinery technology This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. in a press release.

Normark’s previous professional home, professor This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.’s group at Umeå University and the R&D platform Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion Technologies, have a long history of cooperating with—including handing down new inventions and patents to—SEKAB, which small firm develops bioethanol and “green” chemicals at the Biorefinery Demonstration Plant of the Domsjö industrial cluster, Örnsköldsvik, and is part of the Bio4Energy Industrial Network.

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Truth-about-human-food_280117Quinoa farming on the Andean Altiplano. Photo by courtesy of Truth About Human Food.

Scientists in Sweden and Bolivia have teamed up to investigate whether residues from the Latin American country’s production of quinoa—the health food that helped a good number of poor Andean farmers to a higher standard of living in the early-to-mid 2000s, but with overproduction and falling prices in its wake—can be turned into biorefinery products such as renewable ethanol, bio-based polymers or so-called biopesticides.

The three-year project, led from Sweden by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. of Bio4Energy, started last month as news arrived that the prestigious Swedish Research Council had decided to fund researcher exchanges and laboratory expenses under its 2016 call for Development Research. Umeå University in Sweden and Bolivian Universidad Mayor de San Andrés are project partners.

In essence, the Swedish and Bolivian researchers will pool their expertise in biochemical conversion of recalcitrant lignocellulosic materials, on the one hand, and in microbial biodiversity and agricultural conditions of the high Altiplano of the Andes, the high planes of the mountain range that straddles Bolivia and Peru, on the other. The scientists will start where food production stops, that is once the edible quinoa seeds have been separated from the rest of the quinoa plant and what is left are the stalk and seed coats.

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Is the efficient and sustainable biorefinery of the future challenged by the low price of oil and gas and the lack of a political framework that encourages bio-based production in the long term? Yes. Have actors in the sector shut up shop while waiting for conditions to be right for launching the bioeconomy? Not at all.

Judging from developments in Sweden, a precursor country in terms of biorefinery development based on woody materials and organic waste, great strides are being made in industry and academia to pave the way for a transition from an economy heavily reliant fossil fuels and materials based on petrochemicals, towards a bioeconomy. A few such developments were highlighted yesterday at a seminar at Umeå, in northern Sweden, on Feedstock for Sustainable Biofuel Production, by the Swedish Knowledge Centre for Renewable Transportation Fuels (f3 Centre), the research environment Bio4Energy and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. 

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Attachments:
Download this file (Anders Hultgren_SCA.pdf)Anders Hultgren, SCA[ ]1129 kB
Download this file (Annika Nordin_Future Forests-SLU.pdf)Annika Nordin, Future Forests[ ]3966 kB
Download this file (Diego Penaloza_RISE.pdf)Diego Peñaloza, RISE[ ]937 kB
Download this file (Jinggang Guo_CERE-SLU.pdf)Jinggang Guo, CERE, Bio4Energy[ ]453 kB
Download this file (Magnus Hertzberg_SweeTree-Technologies.pdf)Magnus Hertzberg, SweTree Technologies[ ]281 kB
Download this file (Philip Peck_IIIEE_University-of-Lund.pdf)Philip Peck, IIIEE, University of Lund[ ]8855 kB

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RN CB ems filter 30117Robin Nyström (left) and Christoffer Boman of Bio4Energy are checking the soot content of diesel exhaust by analysing what got caught in an emission filter. Photo by Bio4Energy.Despite the European Union transport target for its 28 countries to reach a ten per cent share of renewable energy in the overall fuel mix by 2020—and estimates by consultants CE Delft and TNO in a 2013 study ordered by the European Commission, showing that biodiesel will contribute 6.6 per cent the target—there is only relatively little science available on how best to assess emissions from biodiesel combustion, and notably of the part that is particulate matter, for the results to be relevant for human health and the environment.

Domestic wood burning and combustion of diesel fuel in automotive engines are considered to be the two main sources of emissions of particulate matter globally. Whether these latter impact negatively on human health depends on the size, shape and composition of the particles, as well as how well the body of a person who is exposed to such emissions is able to resist their impact, for how long the exposure goes on and with which intensity. According to the authors of a 2015 Review of the Health Impact of Airborne Particulate Matter, published in Environment International, "small" particles of concern include inhalable coarse particles with a diameter of 2.5 to 10 micrometre (μm) and fine particles smaller than 2.5 μm in diameter.

Biodiesel vs standard diesel RobinNystromTo complicate matters further, the authors of Bringing Biofuels on the Market point out that: “Raising the blending limits for biodiesel is more difficult because of the more complex diesel emission control technology and the possible presence of impurities in biodiesel. For most passenger car manufacturers substantial time would be needed to adapt the regeneration strategy for diesel particulate filters to the higher biodiesel blend”.

 The research environment Bio4Energy of Sweden has a team of scientists dedicated to delivering knowledge on the properties of particulate matter formed as a result of biofuel combustion. The researchers collaborate closely with colleagues at Northern Sweden’s largest hospital, the University Hospital of Umeå, to map the effects on human health of exposure to biofuel, and notably biodiesel emissions. In fact, last month PhD student This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. of the Bio4Energy team presented an encompassing package of work on Particle Emissions from Residential Wood and Biodiesel Combustion.

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JLB4E RM Oct2016Joakim Lundgren, associate professor at the Luleå University of Technology, heads the R&D platform Bio4Energy System Analysis and Bioeconomy. Photo by Bio4Energy.Feedstock for sustainable biofuel production. That is what the industry and research community tell us they want more of, of kinds that are economically and environmentally sustainable, as well as socially acceptable. Notably, there have been calls for focusing research and development (R&D) efforts on developing new types of tailor-made feedstock, such as Bio4Energy’s feedstock researchers do when they try to design and experimentally grow hybrid aspen for the purpose of making biofuel or nanocellulose for the production of specific bio-based materials. Many of the Bio4Energy partner organisations are involved in this effort. 

6 February 2017 some of them will gather at Umeå, Sweden for a seminar precisely on Feedstock for Sustainable Biofuel Production, set in a system analysis perspective and jointly organised the Swedish Centre for Renewable Transportation Fuels, Bio4Energy and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

Feedstock for Sustainable Biofuel Production

— Feedstock Potentials, Climate Change Impact of Forestry and the Realisation of Forest Biorefinery 

 
You are invited!

 Programme and registration
Click the link above or go to the Bio4Energy Events' page
Attachments:
Download this file (program_170206_seminar_f3_slu_bio4energy_online_161212.pdf)Biofuel for Sustainable Feedstock Production: Programme[ ]532 kB

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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.