technology transfer

Bio4Energy Graduate to Bioethanol Developer SEKAB
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™.

“Monica Normark will be a great asset in our work. The CelluAPP™ makes it possible for companies to turn residual materials into marketable products. It’s a win-win situation for business and the environment”, said SEKAB E-Technology head of biorefinery technology This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. in a press release.

Normark’s previous professional home, professor This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.’s group at Umeå University and the R&D platform Bio4Energy Biopolymers and Biochemical Conversion Technologies, have a long history of cooperating with—including handing down new inventions and patents to—SEKAB, which small firm develops bioethanol and “green” chemicals at the Biorefinery Demonstration Plant of the Domsjö industrial cluster, Örnsköldsvik, and is part of the Bio4Energy Industrial Network.
Clean-burning Cook Stoves, Technology for Local Electricity Production to Be Developed for Africa
A project for Africa: Christoffer Boman and colleagues will develop a clean-burning cook stove and propose solutions for local electricity production via biomass gasification. Photos by courtesy of Christoffer Boman.Development of clean-burning technology for household cooking and medium-scale electricity production in Sub-Saharan Africa is the focus of a new multiannual project by Bio4Energy researchers in collaboration with African actors, the Swedish Environment Institute (SEI) and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.

In an application for funding to the Swedish Research Council Formas, which has just been granted, they cite the International Energy Agency stating that almost one fifth of the world population still lacks access to electricity. Moreover, indoor air pollution caused by biomass burning for cooking and heating, either using poor appliances or by simply building a fire indoors, cause about two million deaths per year in Southeast Asia and Africa alone.

While great strides have been made by high-profile initiatives such as the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, "many uncertainties still exist regarding the performance of different cooking solutions… [and] emissions from these systems and the relation to air pollution and health effects need to be better elucidated", according to the project application.
Clean-burning Cooking Solutions, Electricity, Being Developed for Africa

The world needs clean-burning stoves for use in countryside households in third world, the Umeå Renewable Energy Meeting (UREM) 2016heard today. Many such households, for instance in Sub-Saharan Africa, rely on burning of untreated wood or agricultural residues inside the home and in simple appliances with few or no checks on polluting emissions.

01/10

Although international initiatives such as the Global Cookstove Alliance have made great strides in the right direction, the effect of emissions on human health of particulate matter and soot are still not well understood, Bio4Energy researcher This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. told the UREM conference. Boman leads a cross-disciplinary project in which Bio4Energy researchers from Umeå University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences collaborate with the Stockholm Environment Institute and African non-governmental organisations, of which the World Agroforestry Centre in Kenya, to evaluate current so-called clean-burning cookstoves and develop medium-sized facilities for electricity production in the Kenyan countryside.
Decisive Step Taken in Project to Bring Sustainable Bioenergy to Sub-Saharan Africa

Robert Lindgren of Bio4Energy fuels the pilot reactor for biomass gasification. Photo by Bio4Energy© 2020.Scientists in Bio4Energy have taken a decisive step in a multi-actor project to provide sustainable bioenergy solutions for people in some of the least well-off countries in Africa, by designing a pilot installation that will produce energy-rich gas and biochar from pre-treated biomass residues.

The construction of the two-metre tall pilot—which is still a miniature version of what a future commercial-scale gasification reactor would look like—is a collaboration between Bio4Energy researchers at Umeå University and at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences at Umeå, Sweden.

“The reactor makes us able to close the loop, or construct a total system, of upgrading and using residual biomass products from the agricultural industry”, said project leader This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. of the research and development platform Bio4Energy Environment and Nutrient Recycling.

Boman and his colleague and former student This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., of the same R&D platform, have been championing the project since the outset in 2012, and with funding granted in 2015.
Problem-solving Studies on Biomass Gasification, Waste Water Treatment Enabled by VR Grants
Bio4Energy researchers won funds for water treatment projects. Photo by courtesy of FDP.Bio4Energy researchers have won funds for carrying out scientific studies on reducing soot formation in biomass gasification for making biofuels, as well as two projects on water purification in developing countries. The prestigious Swedish Research Council(VR) announced a number of decisions on research funding this week, with the grants to Bio4Energy's researchers corresponding to the 'Natural and Engineering Sciences' and 'Development Research' categories. Bio4Energy PIs 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 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. were the three happy recipients.

"It's very good. I would like to develop better [biomass] gasification technology", said Umeki who is an associate professor at the Luleå University of Technology (LTU) in northern Sweden, who received funding for the project Chemical Interaction of Closely Located Reactive Particles in Gas Flow.

"We are going to develop tools to optimise gasifiers in industrial scale conditions and a new model that will assimilate [or mimic] the gasification process" more adequately than current models, he explained.