|
Written by Anna Strom
|
|
Friday, 22 February 2013 16:55 |
The annual Umeå Renewable Energy Meeting is about to kick  Hannele Tuominen of the Umeå Plant Science Centre hands Johannes Messinger of Umeå University a gift at the close of last year's Umeå Renewable Energy Meeting. Photo by Bio4Energy.
off 25 February with 250 participants registered and several sessions chaired by Bio4Energy researchers—more than in any of the previous four UREMs given on both accounts.
The following morning will be given over mainly to biochemical conversion of forest-sourced biomass to fuels or “green” chemicals, drawing on enzymatic or microbial conversion routes. These sessions (3 and 4) will be chaired by the Umeå University (UmU) professor Leif Jönsson who heads the Bio4Energy Biochemical Platform. Moreover in the “Bio4Energy Session” starting at 11 a.m., B4E researcher Adnan Cavka of UmU will be ‘Exploring the potential of on-site production in lignocellulosic biorefineries’.
In the Wednesday 27 February morning sessions development of “high yield, sustainable energy trees” and water oxidation catalyst inspired by photosynthesis will be described, in a couple of sessions led by the UmU associate professor Johannes Hanson of the Bio4Energy Feedstock Platform.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by Anna Strom
|
|
Thursday, 14 February 2013 17:44 |
A multimillion Swedish-kroner venture in which researchers
and technicians will be working to perfect methods for  Bio4Energy researchers in Bio4Gasification gather outside the bioDME demonstration plant at Piteå, Sweden, after a meeting. Rikard Gebart at centre with light shirt. Photo by Anna Strom©.producing biofuels from forest-sourced materials on a commercial scale will be coordinated by a Bio4Energy scientist. Centering on development activities at a cluster of pilot facilities at Piteå, Sweden, the plans designed to test and demonstrate entrained-flow gasification of different types of biomass-based materials could be worth up to SEK300 million (€35.5 million).
In fact, after an intense autumn of putting the funding application package together, B4E scientist Rikard Gebart, professor at the Luleå University of Technology (LTU) before the turn of the year received the first signs that not only the Swedish Energy Agency, but also the Norrbotten County Administrative Board and not least LTU itself, were ready to invest in a takeover by LTU of the Chemrec Kraftliner at Piteå biofuel development centre, renamed LTU Green Fuels. |
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by Anna Strom
|
|
Friday, 21 December 2012 13:54 |
 Sylvia Larsson of Bio4Energy presents the B4E Graduate School to a November 2012 meeting organised by the Processum Biorefinery Initiative. Photos by Bio4Energy.It is official: The Bio4Energy Graduate School will kick off with a conference for Bio4Energy’s doctorate students, their supervisors and potential student tutors, 19-20 March 2013 at Skellefteå, Sweden. Apart from the conference, the graduate school will consist of two separate “courses” closely related to the research and development activities in B4E. They should start in May 2013 and in spring 2014, respectively, said Bio4Energy researcher Stina Jansson of Umeå University (UmU).
The announcement came this month after a “Task Force Bio4Energy” met to lay down the fundaments of that which is to become a vehicle for networking and tertiary education in bioenergy and biorefinery research for PhD and post-doctorate researchers enrolled in studies at one of the B4E partner universities.
Addressed to those interested in the theory and practice of bioenergy and biorefinery R&D based on forest-sourced raw materials or organic waste, the first course starting in May next year will describe the research being carried out across the seven B4E Platforms. This Biorefinery Pilot Research Course would be taught at the three B4E R&D hubs at Örnsköldsvik, Umeå and Piteå, said Jansson, who is part of the Task Force. |
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by Anna Strom
|
|
Friday, 14 December 2012 16:38 |
The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research  The SLU professor Annika Nordin heads the research programme Future Forests which has been granted four more years of funding by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research. Photo by Anna Strom.
(Mistra) has granted four more years of funding to Sweden’s largest research programme on forest and land use issues, Future Forests. The announcement came just weeks before the expiry of the programme’s first four-year mandate 31 December, after its work programme for 2013-2016 was changed to further focus on economics and biodiversity issues, according to a Mistra newsletter.
In its first funding period, the cross-disciplinary research programme aimed to take an overall view of the way in which to manage and use the boreal forest sustainably while satisfying a range of actors, including the forestry industry, policy makers and people who use the forest for recreation, fishing and hunting. Thus, the word "trade-off" tended to figure prominently in presentations and analytical reports by the Future Forests' leadership.
Indeed, the programme director Annika Nordin said that as people, "We want renewable energy, renewable materials; we want to conserve biological diversity and we want a forest where we can have great experiences". |
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by Anna Strom
|
|
Wednesday, 05 December 2012 17:55 |
|
A plant science researcher in Bio4Energy has been granted SEK3.05  Bio4Energy researcher Edouard Pesquet was granted an award to continue studying the molecular make up of plants and the mentorship of the Umeå University professor Gunnar Öquist. Photo by courtesy of Umeå University.
million to continue refining scientific knowledge of the molecular structure of plants and trees, and notably on the way in which water and minerals are transported in their "vascular" system.
On 4 December, assistant professor Edouard Pesquet, a research group leader at the Umeå Plant Science Centre (UPSC) at Umeå, Sweden, became the first-ever grantee of a so-called Gunnar Öquist Fellowship. This is a new type of award to encourage up-and-coming researchers to innovate by allowing them to test out "novel approaches", as Pesquet put it. Carl Kempe of the Kempe Foundations, a Swedish research funding body, handed over the award at a ceremony at Umeå.
"My research takes aim at the cells that conduct the hydromineral sap" in a tree or plant, Pesquet said. In particular, he has been studying the small vessels that are responsible for transporting water and minerals from a plant’s roots throughout the plant. He likens this system for hydromineral transport with the vascular system of humans or "any superior organism. It must function or we die".
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by Anna Strom
|
|
Monday, 03 December 2012 19:09 |
Could it be possible, in a not-too-distant future, to use nanocomposites based  Bio4Energy researcher Martha Herrera presents her thesis 'Nanostructured Materials Isolated from Bio-Residues, and their Characterisation' 4 December at Luleå University of Technology. Photo by courtesy of Martha Herrera. on cellulosic residue from ethanol or biorefinery production as an agent in separating gases from each other? Or could nanocomposites be employed as a gas barrier in food packaging to keep its content fresh for longer?
If you ask Bio4Energy researchers at the Luleå University of Technology (LTU) the answer is “hopefully, yes”. Tomorrow they are taking a symbolic but decisive step towards reaching their goal. Martha Herrera of the Wood and Bionanocomposites’ division will be taking the stage at LTU to present the group’s finding contained in three scientific articles and one licentiate thesis on Nanostructured Materials Isolated from Bio-Residues, and their Characterisation.
In her thesis, Herrera outlines her team’s efforts at characterising a certain type of nanocomponents, or ‘nanowhiskers’, from two types of residual streams from biorefinery production based on woody raw materials. While one was a by-product of ethanol production by the Swedish clean technology firm SEKAB, the other consisted of reject cellulose from making specialty cellulose at Domsjö Fabriker, at Örnsköldsvik, Sweden, Herrera said.
“We have demonstrated that they can be successfully extracted from bio-residues”, Herrera said with reference to the two nanowhisker suspensions—reject cellulose and bioethanol residue, respectively—which characteristics are accounted for in the thesis. She believed that this was the first time nanowhiskers had been extracted from an industrial waste stream based on woody raw materials. Previously, this kind of process had mainly been applied to bio-residues from agriculture, such as banana leaves, Herrera said. |
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by Anna Strom
|
|
Thursday, 29 November 2012 18:22 |
This month and next, Sweden’s three strategic research  The secretariat of 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has hosted a series of conferences and meetings in view of achieving an agreement by its 195 member countries that will serve to "prevent dangerous anthropogenic (human induced) interference with the climate system". Science has it that this means limiting global average temperatures from rising by more than two degrees Celsius by 2050, compared with pre-industrial levels. Photo by courtesy of IISD.
environments dealing with energy issues, appointed by the government, will be bringing a message to the United Nation’s climate change conference in Qatar, on the way in which one Scandinavian country has chosen to support a comprehensive national approach to sustainable energy research.
Bio4Energy, along with its counterparts STandUP for Energy and the Chalmers Energy Initiative (CEI) have been working intensively to formulate their common aim of developing science that entails a systems’ approach to energy research, expected to provide scientific input for an efficient and a sustainable energy system in Sweden and beyond.
This “Swedish Model”, as it has been called in a new brochure created jointly by the three research environments, available below, will be promoted by a delegation of researchers and support staff travelling to Doha and the 18th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change/8th Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol, 26 November – 7 December.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
Written by Anna Strom
|
|
Friday, 23 November 2012 18:10 |
What did you think of the Bioenergy 2012 conference, held 14-15  The profile picture for the conference Bioenergy 2012 - Research for a New Generation of Green Products and Chemicals. Image published with permission.
November at Piteå, Sweden? Below are some of the reactions sent by e-mail to Bio4Energy, co-organiser of the conference together with its partner, the Solander Science Park.
The conference had about 40 delegates, including those who had a special pass covering the five conferences of the Nolia Energy and Environmental Week who came to participate in Bioenergy 2012. The conference was given on the premises of the seaside resort Pite Havsbad and was moderated by a Swedish journalist, Li Skarin of Massa Media.
Well-spoken chemists
“Thank you for a well-organised and a very interesting conference”, Sven Kullander, chairman of the Energy Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm.
|
|
Read more...
|
|
|
