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From Luleå to Stockholm on E85 from Renewable Methanol - Audio

Details: Created: Monday, 09 May 2016 09:42; Written by Anna Strom

DSC 2892 400x265 Bio4Energy researcher Rikard Gebart and Fredrik Granberg are on the road from Luleå to Stockholm in a personal car powered by renewable methanol based on forestry residue. Photo by courtesy of the LTU.Three weeks ago the news struck that LTU Green Fuels—a cluster of large pilot facilities at Piteå, Sweden, which centre tested and perfected biofuels such as methanol based on forestry residue—was going to have to cease its activities due to a lack of funding.

Today the research leader of the Biosyngas programme, which was an integral part of the development work at the LTU Green Fuels centre, is making a real-life test of the fuel that has been produced and had its performance tested in the centres’ reactors for more than 10,000 hours. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., professor at the Luleå University of Technology and the LTU Green Fuels chief project leader, Fredrik Granberg, are travelling from Luleå in northern Sweden to Stockholm, and then on to Eskilstuna, in a car powered by renewable methanol fuel produced at the pilot plant and blended in with standard petrol refined from fossil oil. This equals a distance of 943.7 kilometre if one chooses to travel mainly on the E4 highway, according to Google Maps.

"It's the first time anybody tries to drive a personal car that has been adjusted to perform well on E85 biofuel from renewable methanol made in Sweden", Gebart said Wednesday (4 May) in a press release from the LTU.

Gebart is a member of the research and development platform Bio4Energy Thermochemical Conversion Technologies. Since before the start of Bio4Energy in 2010, he has been working tirelessly to develop biomass gasification technology to a point where it turns out biofuels from forestry residues and by-products from pulp and paper making that perform as well as in cars its fossil alternatives, are relatively cheap to produce, emit no or a low amount of polluting emissions and can be turned out in large volumes.

Potentially Toxic Chemicals in Thermal Conversion of Biomass Need to Be Investigated, Controlled

Details: Created: Wednesday, 27 April 2016 14:24; Written by Anna Strom

Bio4Energy PhD researcher Qiuju Gao checks torrefied material for toxic organic chemicals in a laboratory at the University of York. Photo by courtesy of Qiuju Gao.In large-scale production of heat and electricity in the developed world, emissions from biomass burning are generally well controlled. Recently, however, new high-technological methods have been invented that are designed as a pre-treatment step to various forms of temperature-dependent conversion of renewable biomass to fuels, chemicals and materials, often in combination with heat and/or electricity production.

Because in such thermal conversion every new process step could be a potential source of undesirable emissions, and because these need to be controlled for the purpose of safeguarding human health and the environment, Bio4Energy scientists set out to investigate the matter with a focus on toxic emissions in relation to pre-treatment technologies that are still in their infancy: Microwave-assisted pyrolysis and torrefaction. While the former is designed to produce a bio oil using microwave technology (and which oil then may be further refined into value-added specialty chemicals), the other is a form of roasting of the biomass which renders light-weight and hydrophobic solid pellets or briquettes. Both methods are performed in an oxygen free, or near oxygen-free, environment.

In a set of studies carried out by Bio4Energy PhD student This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and colleagues at Umeå University in Sweden and at the University of York in the UK, the researchers wanted to find out whether each of the two technologies gave rise to the formation of dioxins or dioxin-like substances that are toxic organic compounds that can spread over large distances, accumulate in the fatty tissue of humans and animals and persist for a long time in the environment. These chemicals are regulated under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) which is a global treaty agreed under the auspices of the United Nations in 2001. It aims for countries to phase out the use of POPs since these are known to induce cancer and immune system deficiencies in humans.

LCA Appropriate Tool for Assessing Environmental Impact of Forest Products, But Beware of Uncertainties

Details: Created: Wednesday, 20 April 2016 15:57; Written by Anna Strom

System analysis student in Bio4Energy Frida Røyne will be defending her PhD thesis on LCA and forest products 22 April at Umeå, Sweden. Photo by courtesy of Frida Røyne.A well-known method for assessing the environmental and climate change impacts of products over their life-cycle is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Forest products are no exception in this respect. However, while there has been rising interest in applying LCA to check the impact of forest products designed to replace similar ones refined from fossil oil, in the last decade a discussion has been ongoing about how to account for greenhouse gas emissions and from which sources.

LCA is one of the most commonly used methods for environmental life-cycle assessments, but the correctness of an assessment's outcome relies heavily on the researcher's choice of method in designing his or her study, as well as the availability of relevant input data.

Tomorrow, a Bio4Energy student who has dwelled into both these issues will be defending her thesis on Exploring the Relevance of Uncertainty in the Life Cycle Assessment of Forest Products.

Part of the new research and development platform Bio4Energy System Analysis and Bioeconomy, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. of Umeå University used recent cases studies—such as a "Forest Chemistry" project in which chemical and forestry industry in Sweden joined forces to try to assess whether a chemical industry cluster at Stenungsund could feasibly replace part of its fossil raw material base with forest-sourced feedstock—to draw conclusions as to whether LCA is a suitable method by which to assess forest products. However, being a generalist and employed by the SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden, Røyne also was interested in looking at the development of LCA as a method of systems analysis, its potential flaws and the way in which these were being communicated.

Her chief conclusion is that LCA is indeed an appropriate method for assessing the environmental and climate change impact of forest product systems, but that the use of additional methods—such as life-cycle management or scenario analysis—may be warranted and that, in each individual case, researchers have to ask themselves whether there are uncertainties and discuss these in their studies.

Lack of Funding Puts End to Large-scale Pilot Trials of BioDME and Bio-based Methanol in Sweden - Audio

Details: Created: Tuesday, 19 April 2016 18:01; Written by Anna Strom

Biofuel production at large-scale pilot operations at Piteå, Sweden will cease. Photo by courtesy of the Luleå University of Technology.

LTU Green Fuels at Piteå—Sweden's only large-scale pilot operations for the production of liquid biofuel from forestry residue—are going to cease its activities due to lack of funding, according to a press release issued by its owner, the Luleå University of Technology.

Despite the pilot plant's having delivered about 1000 tonnes of clean, bio-based dimethyl ether (DME) and methanol, and despite the product having been successfully trialled as fuel in commercial trucking operations by the car manufacturer Volvo, the Swedish Energy Agency had decided not to extend funding beyond the 100 million Swedish kroner it had granted for the past three years, the press release said. It appears that the current 17 employees at LTU Green Fuels will soon have to look around for other work.

"I think it's a shame that we have to discontinue the work at the plant but I am nevertheless hopeful that the technology [developed there] has a future. It has been thoroughly verified in our pilot plant", said This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., professor at the LTU and part of the research and development platform Bio4Energy Thermochemical Conversion Technologies.

In successive interviews since the start of Bio4Energy in 2010, he has been pointing out that for industry to take the step to commercialisation, a long-term and stable political framework is needed that is supportive of a large-scale roll out of second-generation or more advanced biofuels and co-products.

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Public Seminar: Drivmedel från skogen via förgasning - Programme	[ ]	240 kB

Bio4Energy Institutes Part of State Take Over of RISE Institutes of Sweden

Details: Created: Thursday, 14 April 2016 15:09; Written by Anna Strom

In Bio4Energy, Magnus Marklund and Sven-Olof Lundqvist (left) represent SP ETC and Innventia, respectively.Two of the Bio4Energy partners—or member organisations—are being tied more closely together as RISE Institutes of Sweden consolidates and becomes a fully state-owned consortium of research institutes. The SP Energy Technology Center (SP ETC) and Innventia are the two Bio4Energy member organisations affected, as well as Bio4Energy partners attached to the SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden (SP).

"This is the result of a development project that has run for two years with the aim of making actors in Sweden's [research] institute sector come together. In this way RISE will add on six new divisions", according to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., CEO at the SP ETC and part of the research and development platform Bio4Energy Thermochemical Conversion Technologies. From having been an independent research foundation, his organisation based at Piteå in northern Sweden was snapped up by SP only late 2014.

"For us it means that we become part of an even larger company. We are a subsidiary to SP with its 1,500 employees and fully owned by them. RISE for its part has about 2,500 people working for them... I think we will be strengthened by coming together and creating something larger. At the end of the day it is about the [Swedish] government and Ministry of Enterprise [and Innovation] receiving the means to support the industry sector in a better way. There will be more financing and hopefully we will have an expanded mandate to set our research agenda. When it comes to the parties in Bio4Energy, this will also affect Innventia", Marklund said.

F1000 Recommends Bio4Energy Tool for Cell-trait Quantification

Details: Created: Monday, 21 March 2016 14:36; Written by Anna Strom

Urs Fischer talks up some hybrid aspen plants in a greenhouse at the Umeå Plant Science Centre at Umeå University in Sweden. Photo by Anna Strom©.

A study by Bio4Energy researchers and partners was recommended by F1000 faculty as an important article in biology. The Faculty of 1000, or F1000, is an international group of academics—faculty members—who have tasked themselves with identifying and recommending the best research output in biology and medicine when it comes to peer-reviewed scientific articles.

The study by This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.and This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and others gives an overview of a new package of analytical tools for quantifying large amounts of cellular traits, called phenotypes, in plants such as trees. Using the tools, researchers will be able to extract quantitative data from raw images obtained using state-of-the-art fluorescent microscopy. This has not previously been possible and the researchers expect this feature to speed up the process where large amounts of quantitative information need to be assessed. Hall and Fischer are part of the research platform Bio4Energy Feedstock and affiliated with Umeå University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, respectively.

The F1000 faculty member making the recommendation, David G. Oppenheimer of the University of Florida at Gainsville, U.S.A. stated in his motivation:

"The authors' method allows segmentation of images obtained by laser scanning confocal microscopy (or other optical sectioning methods of fluorescently labelled material) followed by assignment of cell types using the Random Forest machine learning algorithm.... I expect that this package will be useful for large-scale quantitative trait loci mapping projects or any projects that require quantification of cellular phenotypes for thousands of individuals."

Biochar as Water Treatment Agent in New Bio4Energy Project - Video

Details: Created: Thursday, 17 March 2016 10:37; Written by Anna Strom

Today Stina Jansson will be giving a public lecture on her reserach project Agricultural Residues for Water Purification in Africa.

Can local biomass waste be used to help solve the problem of polluted waste water in developing countries where water is a scarce resource? Bio4Energy scientists think so. Today one of them is taking her project on the matter to an audience of café goers downtown Umeå, in northern Sweden.

"Water scarcity is a huge problem in many parts of the world and it is not getting better. In many places they use waste water in a way that we in the developing countries would never do. Sewage water is used in agriculture [for irrigation] and we know that the crops take up toxic substances, which people proceed to eat… It affects the health of those who are already vulnerable", said This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.of the platform Bio4Energy Environment and Nutrient Recycling.

Working with local stakeholders in Tanzania and Morocco, Jansson and her team are going to test whether by using simple stoves built from mud or manure, local agricultural waste can be carbonised and turned into biochar. The carbonised residues will be evaluated both as a soil amendment, sucking pollution from irrigation water hitting the soil and as an agent that captures toxic substances in simple water-filtering appliances.