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NorwaySpruce AnnaStrom2021A new EU-funded project will map the availability of residue from forestry operations, such as treetops and branches, in the Swedish and Finnish parts of the Botnia-Atlantica Region. Photo by Anna Strom©2021.A large project to map the availability of forestry residues, with a focus on conifer needles as feedstock for chemical production, has kicked off thanks to funding from the European Union and regions involved in Sweden and Finland.

Bio4Energy researcher This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. leads a section of the work focused on mapping of availability and creating new value chains—or ways of handling the collection of left-over treetops and branches in coniferous forest and of transporting them to industrial facilities for processing, as well as schematising possible end uses.

Biofuel Region, a membership-based organisation in northern Sweden, leads this sub project of an EU project called Botnia Atlantica, under the European Regional Development Fund.

“We want to know what is required for taking out the forestry residues [from the forest] for the purpose of turning them into chemicals. Today, the sector is not adapted for this”, Athanassiadis told Bio4Energy Communications. He is a scientist on the research and development platform Bio4Energy System Analysis and Bioeconomy and affiliated with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

“If we find that there is considerable value [to be gained] from the forest residues, the production chain will be adapted. For instance, it may be necessary to take the forestry residues out before the timber, since especially the needles need to be taken out fresh to have their value conserved”, he said.

The project relies on the assumption that the needles of coniferous trees, such as spruce and pine, contain valuable substances that, by means of extraction and processing, could be turned into high-value chemicals. These could be platform or specialty chemicals, for use in pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, dietary supplements, foams, coatings or even bio-based plastics.

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Delsjon AnnaStrom2018 400It was only a matter of waiting long enough. Summer has arrived in northern Sweden, where most of the Bio4Energy researchers are based. Photo by Anna Strom (Archives).In terms of research output, 2020 was the second most productive since the start of the Bio4Energy research environment in 2010. Several system analysis projects delivered results directly relevant to industry. One made the so-called 100 List of Sweden’s most commercially promising research projects, published annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. Due to restrictions imposed by the spread of Covid-19, all events moved online and successfully so.

Bio4Energy’s new management troika worked hard to put new routines in place and prepare the research environment for a possible third programme period from 1 January 2022. According to Katerine Riklund, chair of Bio4Energy Board and pro-vice-chancellor of Umeå University, funding for Sweden’s Strategic Research Environments—of which Bio4Energy is one—is set to continue at least until the end of 2022.

Sweden-based media picked up extensively on projects on combined production of edible mushroom and biofuel or prebiotics from biomass from the sea and forest, respectively. A magazine with an international reach, Bioenergy Insight Magazine published an interview on Bio4Energy scientists' efforts to bring sustainable bioenergy to Sub-Saharan Africa, drawing on technology for biomass gasification combined with production of biochar.

Attachments:
Download this file (Bio4Energy annual report 2020-v2.pdf)Bio4Energy Annual Report 2020[ ]448 kB

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RISE ETC Bio4Energy2021Bio4Energy partner RISE ETC, together with an industrial consortium, have a new project to scale up production of bio-based carbon black. Photo used with permission.Big strides are about to be made to scale up and improve production of entirely bio-based carbon black, which has characteristics to mimic Industrial Carbon Black.

The successful creation in 2018 of such “green” carbon black from pyrolysis oil, in turn made from solid biomass, sparked a wave of excitement and raised hopes for rapid industrial scale up.

However, sometimes one has to fight to realise a great idea. Today, the Bio4Energy scientists behind the invention finally have partners and funding in place to develop a pilot unit that will bring production to one kilogramme per hour, a year from now. While this may seem insignificant, it is not.

“This means we will make large enough volumes to be able to start testing the material as a replacement product in various applications”, said This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., researcher at RISE Energy Technology Center (RISE ETC) and member of Bio4Energy Thermochemical Conversion Technologies.  

The industrial chemical and bulk commodity carbon black forms at the incomplete combustion of heavy petroleum products. It is widely used as a reinforcing filler in rubber products, such as car tyres, and as a colour pigment. It “possibly” causes cancer in humans, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, as a consequence of people inhaling dust containing carbon black fragments.

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FCh XSh CMM Bio4Energy 170521From left: Feng Chen, Shaojun Xiong and Carlos Martín are doing research to make joint production of mushroom and biofuel commercially feasible. Photo published with permission.An innovative project started by funds from Bio4Energy—on developing joint production of edible mushroom and biofuel—is being recognised by the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences (IVA) for its potential to create value for industry in a “not-too-distant” future.

For the third year running, the IVA has selected 100 innovative research projects that have potential for industrial scale up, this year with a focus on making Sweden and its economy resilient in times of crisis.

“I think they appreciated our innovation—making two products together in an economical way—letting the fungi do the work”, said project leader This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

“The purpose is to convert the scientific part to future commercial use, I guess”, he added.

The concept of growing edible mushroom, such as shiitake or oyster mushroom, on wood originates from East Asia. The idea is to obtain commercial amounts of edible mushroom, a protein-rich source of food, while at the same time obtaining a suitable input material for making biofuel. If the growth conditions are right, the mushroom will not only thrive, but also break down a main polymer in the wood called lignin. This means that another well-known tree polymer—cellulose—can more easily be extracted and turned into ethanol biofuel.

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Sylvia Larsson Bio4Energy©2021Bio4Energy platform leader Sylvia Larsson and her postdoctoral student Glaydson Simões share a joke during their work, at the Biomass Technology Centre at Umeå, Sweden. Photo by courtesy of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. A Bio4Energy leader—and a recent professor—wants to give young people tools with which to change the world, moving to a bioeconomy from an economy dependent on materials and fuels based on petrochemicals.

A professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences since this month, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. has been a platform leader in the research environment Bio4Energy since 2018. This means she is responsible for research and development on wood pre-processing, in the context of making renewable materials and fuels. Larsson is also the chief coordinator for the Bio4Energy Graduate School on the Innovative Use of Biomass.

“I want to capture the commitment of young people to transform [what I perceive to be] the generalised feeling of hopelessness... in the face of climate change. We want to start from the idea of a future society in which the use of fossilised resources is minimal. And to create training that will give students tools to help shape the future,” she said.

The work of the Bio4Energy platform Larsson leads rests on two legs. In terms of biorefinery—meaning the concept of making chemicals, fuels and materials from bio-based starting materials—her platform tackles the need to make these latter more like fossilised resources. Bio-based feedstock, like wood, is heterogenous, meaning that its composition varies greatly. Larsson’s platform, Bio4Energy Wood Pre-processing, adapts the woody materials to specific processes. She refers to this as the “problem-solving” leg of the work of the platform.

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Dalia FORMASDalia Abdelfattah Yacout has done nothing but to show her front feet since joining Bio4Energy as a student in 2018. This year she starts her own major research project on finding a sustainable type of biofuel for shipping in the Arctic. Photo used with permission.A young Bio4Energy scientist has won funds for identifying an alternative solution to using fossil fuels for shipping in the Arctic, and for renewable fuel from bio-based waste to replace these former.

Funding body Formas Research Council decided to grant This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. a three-year project to identify a biofuel with low environmental and climate change footprint, made from waste from pulp and paper industry in the Arctic region. Abdelfattah, researcher at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, will do so in collaboration with a regional biofuel producer and a couple of senior scientists from Umeå University, Sweden.

If scaled up and implemented, the design is intended to tackle pollution and climate change in the Arctic region, while helping to solve the pulp and paper industry’s problem of excessive waste, as well as providing jobs for the production and transport of advanced biofuel.

The team will concentrate on investigating two existing routes of making biofuel by so-called thermochemical conversion. One draws on tall oil for the production of biodiesel and the other sludge from the pulp and paper industry to make bioethanol.

“These fuels are already used in cars, but we are going to assess whether they can also be used in shipping”, said Abdelfattah.

In fact, the team will start by laying bare the environmental impacts of the two production routes across a number of indicators in a way that has not been done before. Climate change and eutrophication effects will be considered. Cost-benefit analyses will be performed for use by industrial stakeholders and, finally, social impacts calculated.

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CristhianCarrasco CarlosMartín LeifJönssonFrom left; Cristhian Carrasco, Carlos Martín and Leif Jönsson; on the Bolivian Altiplano, at the start of the Quinoa Project in 2017. Photo by courtesy of Carlos Martín.A groundbreaking research project on turning inedible residue from quinoa production in the Andes of South America into bio-based products, will have a long-term continuation. Fresh funds from the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), and a great investment of time and resources by the project leaders, mean that a number of students will be trained to lead the work in Bolivia and that new bio-based materials will be developed.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. of Bio4Energy at Umeå University (UmU), Sweden and Cristhian Carrasco of Bolivian Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, lead a part of the newly granted five-year Research Cooperation Programme that targets the development of bio-based materials.

The pair will oversee research and training on production of bio-based polymers—bio-based substances or materials consisting of very large molecules—that will eventually result in new materials made from quinoa stalks. These latter are what is left over after the protein-rich edible part of the plant has been removed.

The pharmaceutical and food industry are targets for the bio-based materials to be developed.

Bolivia, along with other Latin American nations place great belief in the nascent bioeconomy to provide renewable products and sustenance to farmers in financially challenged regions sharing the Andean Altiplano, the high-altitude plateau of the mountain range that straddles Bolivia, Peru, Chile and Argentina.

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Sensors TotteNiittyla 040321Newly created electrochemical sensors will help researchers understand sugar transport in plants, to improve agricultural and biorefinery raw material production. Pictures published with permission.A new system to monitor sugar levels in plants or trees in real time, for the purpose of optimising growth conditions, in the face of climate change. Seems futuristic? It is here, in any case.

Bio4Energy scientists with expertise in feedstock research teamed up with partners in Sweden, Italy, France, Greece to create cheap-to-produce sensors that gauge the levels and whereabouts of sugar in plants, as they vary over the day and with changing climatic conditions.

The idea is to have a versatile way for researchers to implant small electrochemical sensors directly in the plant to monitor the fluctuations in the way in which the sugar is transported stored in the plant. The results are directly visible.

With this kind of research tool, it will be possible to gauge optimal conditions for growth for various types of plants, for instance which kind of soil, soil moisture and temperature conditions should be preferred.

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