International Day of Forests 2017
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- Written by UN FAO
Video by courtesy of the Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations.
Monica 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™.Read more: Bio4Energy Graduate to Bioethanol Developer SEKAB
Quinoa 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.
Read more: New Project to Turn Quinoa Residue into Bio-based Products
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.
 Anders Hultgren, SCA | [ ] | 1129 kB |
| Annika Nordin, Future Forests | [ ] | 3966 kB |
| Diego Peñaloza, RISE | [ ] | 937 kB |
| Jinggang Guo, CERE, Bio4Energy | [ ] | 453 kB |
| Magnus Hertzberg, SweTree Technologies | [ ] | 281 kB |
| Philip Peck, IIIEE, University of Lund | [ ] | 8855 kB |
Robin 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.
To 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”.
Joakim 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.
Feedstock for Sustainable Biofuel Production— Feedstock Potentials, Climate Change Impact of Forestry and the Realisation of Forest Biorefinery
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| Biofuel for Sustainable Feedstock Production: Programme | [ ] | 532 kB |
Read more: Feedstock for Biofuel Production: Seminar 6 February at Umeå
Read more: Thermal Treatment to Be Tested for Turning Waste to Resource on Space Trip - Video, Audio
Are 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.Read more: Mixed Biofuel Could Help Put Refuse to Use, Reduce Harmful Emissions
