Nordic Wood Biorefinery Conference (NWBC) 2024

In June 2022, ground was broken for RISE’s new pilot hall in Örnsköldsvik, the heart of Bioeconomy Arena. With the arena, RISE supports industry and society to accelerate the development of new products and solutions based on sustainable origins. In the flexible pilot hall in Örnsköldsvik, as well as in operations around the country, companies will be able to test their innovations without starting from scratch. 

"The pilot hall in Örnsköldsvik will be a national node where operators in research and industry can meet and realise ideas about how biomass can be used for the greatest possible benefit. And when large companies with practicable residual streams meet growing tech companies with ideas about what can be done, completely new business clusters can emerge" says Magnus Hallberg.

In this presentation, we explore the historical roots of the industry located just minutes away from the event venue, tracing its origins in the early 1900s when chemicals first were crafted from bio-based raw materials.​ From this tradition, Sekab as a fossil-free challenger is pushing for change through relentless innovation and strategic collaborations. We aim to redefine supply chains and revolutionize sectors spanning cosmetics to automotive.

Unlike other energy-intensive industries, the chemical industry cannot be made fully sustainable directly with renewable power. Hence, a strategy for fossil free competitiveness must include a transition to green carbon feedstocks. Sekab has a long history of converting bio-based ethanol to competitive green chemical products and based on this, our presentation highlights challenges and key factors for a transition in the chemical industry, from fossil-based economy to bio-based economy, including availability of feedstock, market opportunities, political conditions, and price development.

Jason Hallet, Professor of Sustainable Chemical Technology, Imperial College, will present VALUED´s journey to build our most important functional materials from bio-based resources. These materials will lower CO2 emissions, helping the world reach zero emissions by 2050 while boosting high-performance technologies and creating new industries. This will form the cornerstone for a modern technology-dependent economy.
 

“At NWBC 2024 we will give an overview of the research involved in VALUED and an in-depth look at our use of novel solvents to obtain bespoke precursors for advanced materials synthesis.”, says Jason Hallet

With the green transition to a circular and bio-based economy, bio-based materials are becoming an attractive option in many markets. They are expected not only to perform but, in many cases, enhance performance, or even be smart and responsive. They are expected to contribute to circularity by coming from recycled sources, preferably while minimizing waste.

In this keynote, Marie-Claude Béland, PhD, MBA, will build on her many years of experience in commercialization of new bio-based materials to explore how sustainability and digitalization trends are impacting the lab-to-market gap. She will offer insights into how integrating circular economy principles can unlock new opportunities for sustainable materials.

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an essential technology in industry and society. VTT are using AI both in technologies they develop with their customers and in their fundamental research. 

Mikkor Mäkelä's research focuses on empirical measurements and data-driven mathematical models using traditional statistics, chemometrics and machine learning for material and process development. He works with interdisciplinary groups in Sweden, Spain and Japan and is an Associate Professor from SLU since 2019. He shares the responsibility of managing the AI-driven design of materials highlight at the Finnish Center for Artificial Intelligence FCAI, where he use machine learning to accelerate material and process development.

“In this keynote I will focus on biomass processing and briefly discuss how AI can be used in traditional process monitoring tasks, new digitalized tools for textile sorting, and even in our daily routines in the lab. This keynote aims to showcase a fundamental transformation into using AI to guide material and process development”, says Mikko Mäkelä. 

Magnus Lundmark joined Renewcell in October as COO and was later appointed CEO following the company's restart as Circulose, leading its re-launch efforts. Previously served as Business Director at Domsjö Fabriker for 12 years and spent 13 years at MoRe Research. Holds a Master of Science in Engineering, specializing in Technical Physics.

Renewcell successfully overcame significant challenges in financing and scaling up production of new material made by recycling cotton from worn-out clothes and production waste, but still ended up in bankruptcy due to other factors. Now re-emerging as Circulose the company is determined to apply the lessons learned from its previous venture. In this keynote Magnus will examine Rewcell’s success in scaling, the reasons for its financial collapse, and how Circulose plans to implement a more resilient business model to ensure long-term sustainability and avoid past mistakes.

Fibenol has established the world’s first lignocellulosic biorefinery capable of delivering sustainable Scope 3 raw materials of the highest quality. This will enable the defossilization of the chemical and materials industry—from NetZero asphalt coatings to natural biopolymer-based plastic alternatives and adhesives for engineered wood to cosmetics. The Fibenol technology is validated and ready for commercial roll-out, but has it globally established a supportive framework to foster sustainable innovation in the market?

“In this keynote, we share our journey and our view of the ‘battlefield’,” says Peep Pitk.

Peep Pitk has had the privilege of being involved in Fibenol’s journey from day one in 2016, leading the novel wood fractionation technology scale-up project from zero to the world’s first industrial plant in Estonia.