FME Bio4Fuels

🌻 We wish all our supporters a great summer break with this summer newsletter ⤵ Read some thoughts from our management team as well as a reminder of the importance of in-kind reporting. Further down you'll find the celebration of yet another successful PhD-defence, a summary of Bio4Fuels Days 2024, and the recordings of our two latest webinars. Picture by Copilot

📰 Ayaz Ali Shah, a previous visiting PhD student from Aalborg University has published a paper describing his work at SINTEF Energy Research facilities within Bio4Fuels' sub project 2, Liquefaction Processes, work package 2.2 Hydrothermal liquefaction. Ayaz visited SINTEF for 3 months at the end of 2020. Ayaz's work has mainly consisted of performing batch and continuous experiments in the continuous hydrothermal liquefaction rig. He tested several feedstocks and several process conditions. He was responsible for collecting and separating the products as well. Back in Aalborg he performed the analyses on the products. MDPI

🚢 Successful gasification of blends of wood powder and seaweed    Seaweed has the ability to grow rapidly, exceeding many terrestrial plants in terms of speed and biomass production. Locally harvested seaweed was dried and milled, to be made suitable as Entrained Flow gasification feedstock. Read more about the research led by Morten Seljeskog in our sub-project 4, Gasification Processes in the link below ⏬

Optimization of ex-situ biomethanation process in trickle bed reactor 📰 A publication earlier this year by NIBIO Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research researcher Michal Sposob highlights the importance of slight H2/CO2 ratios adjustments on trickle bed reactors for biomethanation. 👨🔬 This work is part of our sub-project 3, Biochemical Processes.

The team at NMBU - Norwegian University of Life Sciences has published a new paper on enzymatic degradation of cellulose. Congratulations to lead-author Camilla Fløien Angeltveit!

🥇 Congratulations to Cristian Bolaño Losada for winning the poster prize at RRB Renewable Resources & Biorefineries' conference earlier this month. He presented a poster about Consolidatie Bioprocessing using fungal co-cultures to produce biodiesel. Cristian is a PhD-student in our sub-project Biochemical Processes, working with Alexander Wentzel in WP3.3 Fermentation.

As is tradition, during Bio4Fuels Days last week we organised a poster session and competition. 🏆 The jury found Tan Phat Vos poster clear and well-structured. The poster has good figures, and a limited amount of text makes the topic, Sewage Sludge using Hydrothermal Process, easy to quickly understand. 👏 Congratulations to the winner and Tampere University and thank you to everyone who took part in this session and shared their research with us.

🔎 When did you last visit our website? Find information about our research areas, news, upcoming events, partners, annual reports, contact information and much more all in one place ⬇ #biofuel #biofuels #sustainableaviationfuel #biochemical

👏 We have now wrapped up a content rich and insightful Bio4Fuels Days meeting in Helsinki! The final sessions were headlined by thyssenkrupp Uhde, presenting their perspective of gasification-based technologies and Wärtsilä with an overview of new marine motor technologies running on alternative sustainable fuels.   Supporting presentations from University of South-Eastern Norway and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) academic partners highlighted the pioneering research carried out in Bio4Fuels on modelling of gasification processes and complex kinetic studies of downstream gas conditioning and Fischer-Tropsch. The 2 days of technical sessions were completed by SINTEF Ocean giving perspectives on the global challenges faced by the marine sector’s access to sustainable marine fuels and SINTEF Industry showcasing Bio4Fuels achievement of coordinating across disciplines through lab to flow sheeting and costing of a fully integrated biochemical and thermochemical biorefinery.   🧡 Following the tradition of Bio4Fuels Days giving researchers insight to the challenges and opportunities of going to commercial scale, a visit to our host VTT’s Bioruukki and FutureHub2 piloting facilities rounded off a wonderful visit to sunny Helsinki!

We have just finished with what has been a very fruitful and interesting first day of our Bio4Fuels Days meeting in Helsinki, for which VTT will be hosting a visit to their piloting labs. The industry presentations from Neste, Silva Green Fuel, Valmet and Q Power Oy gave an overview of and insight to status of commercial production technologies at different stages of deployment. Presentations from TNO and Natural Resources Institute Finland / Luonnonvarakeskus highlighted the dilemmas and opportunities for accessing significant biomass resources needed to support the clear role of biofuels in mitigation of emission from the transport sector. These presentations from the invited speakers provided an excellent backdrop to the recent research results from Bio4Fuels activities within climate change effects, liquefaction and fermentation technologies. The combination of technical discussions and networking has resulted in a very enjoyable first day 💚