From wood to nanocellulose and back again: A study on the nanoscale
From wood to nanocellulose and back again: A study on the nanoscale
Nanostructured aerogels for removal of organic and inorganic water pollutions
Nanostructured aerogels for removal of organic and inorganic water pollutions
Platform for recyclable furan derivatives and plastics from lignocellulose
The purpose of the project is to develop, produce and investigate furan-based polyesters that meet the industry's needs for competitive and sustainable high-performance thermosets and thermoplastics.
Improved uniformity of the fibers liberated in the kraft pulp digester
This project sets out to elucidate mass transport characteristics during delignification of wood chips as a means of understanding and controlling non-uniform delignification effects, associated to low efficiency and poor property control in the current pulping processes. To obtain information on local variations of delignification effect in a wood chip, the treated chips will be […]
Hemicelluloses for fibre enzymatic modification
Our project focuses on hemicelluloses, as they play an important role within lignocellulosic biomass, interlocking cellulose microfibrils, and lignin. Hemicelluloses affect the mechanical properties of cellulose fiber surfaces by creating rigid and flexible domains. The vision of the project is to unlock the full potential of hemicelluloses in wood and open the way for a […]
Enzymatic engineering of hemicellulose hydrogels
In this project we will engineer hemicellulose hydrogels using a wide range of enzymes, from oxidative laccases that introduce crosslinking to specific hydrolases that cleave selectively side chains from the hemicelluloses. We expect that the enzymatic treatments will modulate the network interactions in the hydrogels and the rheological properties. We will investigate the morphology and […]
Wood modification towards hierarchical catalyst
Electrocatalytic reaction is a green technology for sustainable energy conversion, materials design, environment remediation, and green chemistry, where the role of catalyst is essential. Hierarchical structures combining multi-scale pores are favorable due to combined high specific surface area, mass diffusion in the structure and accessibility to the surface. In nature, biological materials are much more […]
Soft highly swelling fibres by alkali-activated chemical modification
To make cellulose fibres more flexible and malleable, components inside the fibre must be properly modified, that is, the lignin, hemicellulose or cellulose needs to be at least partly transformed into a proper derivative. Several cellulose derivatives are today produced through chemical reactions that involves formation of ether bonds. To reach sufficient efficiency, these reactions […]
Wood-based barriers for wood-based materials
Paper/wood-based materials suffer from poor barrier and moisture-sensitive properties (left figure). By learning how nature (plants/fruits) create moisture and gas barriers, we have developed crosslinked barrier biopolyesters (representing the cutin layer in plants) with also a process that yields a rough wax-like outer layer, similar to what is observed in plants, giving high surface hydrophobicity […]
Energy efficiency and modelling of vacuum dewatering in modern tissue machines
The project is a research coproduction between the research environment Pro2BE at Karlstad University, Valmet and Albany International about energy efficiency of tissue production. The project is aimed at acquiring deeper knowledge about tissue vacuum dewatering and at modelling vacuum dewatering during tissue production, both with a conventional tissue manufacturing method (DCT) and with Through […]
Biobased barriers on packaging substrates
The PhD project in chemical engineering will use wood-pulp fibres, modified cellulosic materials, dewatering and drying as well as computational fluid dynamics, mass transfer models, rheological characterization of complex fluids and renewable packaging solutions. The studies will involve experimental work as well as calculations and modelling of the barrier performance. The research focus of the […]
Physical Structure and Interactions between Lignin and its Surroundings
The aim of the project is to gain a deeper fundamental understanding of how the classical structural factors and unique morphology of lignin affects the interaction between lignin and lignin-based materials and its surroundings. The affect of chemical structure and morphology on the material performance of lignin-based materials will be investigated along with the behavior […]
