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Bio4EnergyBio4Energy SAB AnnaStrom2020x500Bio4Energy system analysis researchers at Umeå can help applying life-cycle assessment on bio-based technology projects. Illustration by Bio4Energy© 2020. system analysis researchers at Umeå, Sweden have joined up to issue guidance on the way in which life-cycle assessment (LCA) may be applied to technology-based projects in the areas of advanced biofuels, ‘green’ chemicals or bio-based materials, in line with the topical focus areas of the research environment.

In a new compendium, which starts with an introduction to the LCA method and the need for its application, they outline finished and ongoing LCA-to-biomass projects shepherded by two expert teams at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and Umeå University, respectively.

“It shows the work that has been done in Bio4Energy and informs technical researchers of the possibilities afforded by applying LCA to technology-based projects”, said This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Bio4Energy researcher at the SLU.

Attachments:
Download this file (Life Cycle Assessment Projects in Bio4Energy at Umea_171120.pdf)Life-cycle Assessment Projects at Bio4Energy Umeå, Sweden[ ]2153 kB

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AllSaintsDay AnnaStrom2020It may be winter in northern Sweden, but the Bio4Energy researchers keep winning new projects. Photo by Anna Strom©2020.Three new projects on bio-based maritime fuels, marine applications and carbon black will kick off thanks to new funding grants from the Research Council Formas, in its annual round of research funding.

Scientists representing three different Bio4Energy Research and Development Platforms will be running these multi-annual projects, with the main applicants acknowledged as follows:

  • Development of lignin-based eco-friendly antifouling coatings for marine applications (NATURAL) by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion Technologies at the Luleå University of Technology;
  • Green carbon black by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Bio4Energy Thermochemical Conversion Technologies at the RISE Energy Technology Center and;
  • Forest-based biofuels for sustainable maritime shipping in the Arctic by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Bio4Energy System Analysis and Bioeconomy at Umeå University.

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Linn Berglund LTUBio4Energy researcher Linn Berglund of the Luleå University of Technology receives the Vattenfall Prize for Best PhD Thesis 2020, on making nanofibres from bio-based residue. Photo used with permission.Energy utility Vattenfall has acknowledged excellent research on nanotechnology to make bio-based starting materials, with its 2020 Award for Best PhD Thesis at the Luleå University of Technology (LTU), Sweden.

The research work has entailed breaking down biomass such as bio-based residue into its smallest structural components to obtain so-called nanofibers, making a schematic overview—or platform—for their inherent characteristics and use possibilities and, in a couple of cases, attempts to design applications.

Gaining her PhD in 2019, LTU associate senior lecturer This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. thus receives the prize for having developed a platform for mechanically fibrillated (or separated) nanofibers, outlined in her thesis From Bio-Based Residues to Nanofibers Using Mechanical Fibrillation for Functional Biomaterials.

Berglund’s work contains a starting point for evaluating the quality and energy efficiency of using nanofibres extracted from different types of bio-based starting materials, such as wood, pulp or different types of organic residues, in applications.

She has also been part of developing applications from two of the most promising types of residue—namely from carrot juice production and from a form of kelp (brown algae seaweed) called Norwegian Fingertips—to make lightweight foam materials and hydrogels for biomedical use, respectively.

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Bio4EnergyArlanda SE AnnaStrom2020Some of the feedstock that goes into bio-based jet fuel products being developed goes to waste already in the production process. Bio4Energy researchers have set out to find out how much and what can be done about it. Photo by Bio4Energy. researchers are launching the second in a series of projects, to map the extent of the so-called carbon efficiency of advanced biofuels and calculate the cost of efficiency improvements. In this context, carbon efficiency is a measure of the extent to which the carbon in the bio-based starting material, or feedstock, ends up in the final energy product.

Whereas the first project looks at a number of routes to produce biofuels for road transport, via specific value chains; the second is focussed on bio-based jet fuel technologies and resulting products.

According to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., researcher at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden; who leads the project on bio-based jet fuels; there is great variation in the carbon efficiency depending on the process route and technology.

Biomass gasification employing Fischer–Tropsch technology and alcohols-to-jet, respectively, were two relevant tracks considered in this project in terms of using wood-based feedstock for jet fuel production in the short term, he explained.

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Audience 210518 2 420Twice a year, the Bio4Energy scientists meet as a group to exchange ideas. Photo by Bio4Energy (archives).Bio4Energy offers its scientists the possibility to apply for so-called Strategic Funds to finance projects on new lines of research that are likely to advance the frontiers of science. The projects also have to promote collaboration between researchers from different disciplines or organisations; including universities, institutes and industry tied to the research environment.

Today’s Bio4Energy Researchers’ Meeting, a biannual event for the research programme within the environment, learnt about projects enabled by those funds.

Attachments:
Download this file (EleonoraBoren_ChristofferBoman-TWIST-201105.pdf)Valorisation of pulp and paper mill ashes and sludge[ ]3266 kB
Download this file (Kristiina_Oksman-Strategic_projects-201105.pdf)Supercapacitors from carbon nanofibres from lignin and biochar[ ]2159 kB
Download this file (Program Bio4Energy Autumn Meeting 201105.pdf)Bio4Energy Researchers' Meeting: Programme[ ]192 kB
Download this file (Sacha_Escamez-FLIM-201105.pdf)Determinants of lignocellulose recalcitrance to bioconversion[ ]928 kB

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The prestigious Swedish Research Council has granted no less than five new fundamental science projects led by Bio4Energy researchers, in its annual round of funding in Science and Technology.

  • Watching the death of carbon nanoparticles by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Bio4Energy Thermochemical Conversion Technologies at RISE Energy Technology Centre.
  • Mechanics and dynamics of cell-to-cell adhesion in plants by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Bio4Energy Feedstock at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
  • Cell-type specific lignification in plant vasculature by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Bio4Energy Feedstock at Umeå University.
  • Multi-scale studies of aqueous neoteric liquids—ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Bio4Energy System Analysis and Bioeconomy at the Luleå University of Technology.
  • Enzymatic modification of lignin by oxidoreductases from wood-degraded fungi by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion Technologies at Umeå University.

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Collage Sodra Morrum2 220920From the operating sites of two of the project partners: the Södra Cell Mörrum pulp mill and a worker at the Smurfit Kappa paper mill (insert). Both operations are in Sweden. Photos by courtesy of Per Pixel and Caroline Lundmark, respectively. A new report designed to lay bare the potential for coupling pulp production with biofuel making from pulping residue, shows that there is a double benefit to be had in doing so for pulp mill operators.

First, production capacity could be increased at existing mills. Second, climate-efficient transport biofuel could be produced at a cost per energy unit that is on a par or better, compared with similar biofuels made from residues from forestry operations.

The new fuels would be so-called drop-in biofuels, which means that they are functional equivalents of their petroleum fuel counterparts and thus can be directly blended in with these latter at any ratio.

The researchers' report identifies two main technologies that would put the production cost of the biofuel at 80 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh) or about 65-to-75 euro cents per litre. It is the result of a collaboration project between Bio4Energy systems analysis researchers at the Luleå University of Technology (LTU) in Sweden, companies in the sector and researchers from the RISE Research Institutes of Sweden.

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Collage Populus plantation Bio4Energy2020 400Populus plants at the researchers' field trial plantation in southern Sweden. Photos by courtesy of Henrik Böhlenius.Researchers in Bio4Energy and a partner will investigate the potential for a rollout in Sweden of plantations of fast-growing poplar trees—Populus trichocarpa in Latin—as a means to increase biomass production for making renewable automotive fuels from wood and woody residue.

While there is a great body of scientific literature to describe the trees and their properties in themselves, information on the economics and technical feasibility of doing so at a large scale is relatively scant, according to project leader This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., scientist at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). Contrary to most of the other Bio4Energy scientists who are based in the Swedish north, he is in the southernmost part of the country, at Alnarp.

“We see a great potential for [rollout of] this type of plantation, along the lines of one million hectares that could be added to the current domestic production of bioenergy”, Böhlenius said.

Sweden would benefit from making more advanced biofuels—renewable fuels that do not compete with food production and meet high quality standards in terms of their greenhouse gas footprint—at an affordable cost.

Land is available, to believe official statistics. Roughly 400,000 hectares of agricultural land could be planted with poplar without jeopardsing food production. Another one-to-two million hectare of spruce tree plantations, sitting on former agricultural land, could be used to plant poplar or other fast-growing tree species. 

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