On the platform for Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion Technologies researchers develop biocatalysts and bioprocesses, drawing on microbial conversion of forest-sourced biomass, notably. Photo used with permission.

• Use tree cell-wall polymers as a raw material for producing electrictiy, heat, biofuel and value-added 'co-products' using biorefinery methods and;
• Create and develop biocomposites using nanotechnology.

Platform leader is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., professor at Umeå University.

The following researchers are part of Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion Technologies:

Bio4EnergyReady for new adventures: Researcher Carlos Martín Medina will take up a professorship in Norway, giving Bio4Energy its first presence there. Photo by Anna Strom©2021. is about to have its first solid presence in Norway, with researcher This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., native of Cuba, taking up a professorship in Biomass and Bioresources Utilisation at the Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences at Hamar.

Thanks to continued research funding, Martín will continue to advise a research group at Umeå University in Sweden, whose members belong to the platform Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion Technologies.

Notably, an encompassing project on biorefinery production from quinoa residues and capacity building for the bioeconomy; which is a collaboration with the Bolivian Universidad Mayor de San Andrés; will continue for at least another five years.

“It is kind of a dream [that I have] to be a bridge between the research communities of Sweden and Norway”, Martín told Bio4Energy Communications in an online interview. 

Taking up his new position, Martín will also start a new role as a member of a new European Union initiative to promote raw materials for biorefinery based on different types of organic waste.

Leif Jönsson and Carlos Martín Medina show the plaque and diploma their research group were awarded for the great interest shown by the research community in their scientific article on biomass inhibitors in wood biorefinery. Photo by InYung Sunwoo.

A team of Bio4Energy scientists and partners have been acknowledged at a prestigious conference for their work to reduce the effect of toxic substances in the pre-treatment of biomass destined for conversion to advanced biofuels made using yeast or microbes to turn wood polymers into fuels.

Their review article, Pre-treatment of lignocellulose: Formation of inhibitory by-products and strategies for minimising their effects, published in the Bioresource Technologyscientific journal, has not stopped receiving acclaim since its publication in 2016. At the time of New Horizons in Biotechnology Conference (NHBT-2019)—a conference given in India in November this year—results from the article had been mentioned 560 times in other scientific articles by researchers worldwide.

This made the editorial board of Bioresource Technology decide to award the researcher with a diploma and a plaque for their Highly Downloaded Article 2019.

“It is the most downloaded article steadily during the last two years and the most cited article of Bioresource Technology since 2016”, said This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. of Umeå University and a PI on the platform Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion Technologies.

“I think it helped that the review covered all three areas of pre-treatment, formation of inhibitors and strategies [designed to lessen] their effects”, Martín added, “and that the discussion included some new important inhibitors in terms of their effects. That is, compounds that form in small amounts, but which are very strong inhibitors”.

Pulp and paper maker BillerudKorsnäs' operations at Karlsborg, Sweden. Photo used with permission.Bio4Energy scientists are part of a large-scale collaboration to develop a technology for capture and onshore storage of carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas, from pulp and paper making. Pulp and paper maker BillerudKorsnäs in the Bio4Energy Industrial Network is industrial partner.

The researchers will use byproducts from the company's operations at Karlsborg, Sweden; coupled with enzyme technology; to capture carbon dioxide that would otherwise escape from the industrial process as biomass is burned. 

Once captured, the gas will be turned into bicarbonate, a salt of carbonic acid, which is in fact a water-soluble form of carbon dioxide. The fact that it is water soluble will make it safe to pump into the ground, according to a press release from Luleå University of Technology(LTU) where the scientists work.  

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and Io Antonopoulou of Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion Technologies will use lime mud and green liquor sludge from residual streams of the pulp and paper making to develop a technique for capture of biogenic carbon dioxide. Other researchers at the LTU will undertake a large-scale mapping exercise to assess the potential for geological carbon dioxide storage in Sweden.

The Swedish Energy Agency funds the project via a large package of measures known as Industriklivet, part of the government's efforts to combat and prevent climate change.

Twice 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.