Active bio-based materials

• Hybrid Material Integration: Integration of diverse active materials with wood-derived components (including graphene, carbon nanotubes, conductive polymers, and other inorganic particles) in combination with cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin.
• Material Forms: Capability to fabricate materials in various forms, such as flexible films, highly absorbent hydrogels, advanced composites, strong filaments, or paper-based materials.
• Tailored Interactions: Control of interfacial interactions between active components and cellulose to tune material properties. This control enables water-based processing of substances that are typically water-repellent (e.g., integrating carbon nanotubes or graphene in aqueous systems).
• Electronic Component Fabrication: Expertise and equipment to create electronic components from the resulting active-material composites. For example, we can fabricate devices such as supercapacitors, batteries, sensors, transistors, and actuators entirely from wood-based active materials.
• Application Development: Exploration of a broad range of applications for these interactive materials, including large-scale energy storage systems, active packaging solutions, smart clothing (wearable electronics textiles), high-performance antennas, and environmental active filters.

• Photocatalytic “Self-Cleaning” Paper: Infused with photocatalytic zinc oxide nanoparticles, this paper purifies air and self-cleans when illuminated by UV light. RISE proved this concept at an industrial scale, demonstrating cost-effective production.
• “Power Paper” – Energy-Storing Nanocellulose Film: This flexible black paper works like a rechargeable supercapacitor, storing and releasing significant electric charge. It achieved a world record in performance for organic electronics.
• Smart Packaging Materials: RISE is developing active packaging solutions that interact with their contents or environment to improve shelf-life and user experience. These include multifunctional paper that can sense conditions and send these wirelessly, provide electromagnetic shielding, or regulate temperature. Sustainable solutions for wireless readout is becoming increasingly important for the implementation of new regulations on Digital Product Passports (Trace4Value & SwePass | RISE).
• Responsive Nanocellulose Hydrogels: These hydrogels respond to stimuli or serve advanced purposes, such as acting as humidity sensors or bio-based superabsorbents.

• Pilot-Scale Production: Development of efficient production processes at a pilot scale, facilitating the transition from laboratory research to scalable manufacturing. As an example, RISE operates pilot facilities to manufacture nanocellulose at scale, making the material more accessible for industry. RISE operates both lab-scale (10 g–1 kg/day) and pilot-scale (50–100 kg/day) cellulose nanofibril (CNF) facilities in Stockholm. RISE upgraded a pilot line for crystalline nanocellulose (CNC) production from 4 kg to 10 kg per day, and the improvements have made nanocellulose production viable and cost-effective by reducing energy consumption. RISE also provides pilot lines for papermaking, cellulose films, and foam forming.
• Coating techniques: RISE offers a comprehensive range of coating techniques, like dip coating, surface sizing, spray coating, spin coating, roll-coating, and nFOG. RISE also provides surface treatment services tailored to enhance material functionality across various industries, e.g., Physical vapour deposition (PVD), a functional thin coating technique suitable for plastics, metals, and ceramics to enhance surface properties like wear resistance, corrosion protection, electrical insulation, and more. Functional surface treatments via wet methods like silane chemistry, etching, or polymer grafting, or dry methods like plasma, corona, or flame treatment provide anti-corrosive, anti-bacterial, anti-ice, dirt/liquid-repellent, fire-protective functionalities.

RISE is actively involved in developing advanced carbon materials from bio-based resources. Key research areas include the production of hard carbon for batteries, carbonisation of biomass into fuel or electrode materials, and graphitisation of bio-carbon into graphite. 

• Hydrothermal Carbonisation (HTC): RISE operates both lab- and pilot-scale HTC reactors in Stockholm and Örnsköldsvik. These facilities are used to convert biosludge and other low-value biowaste into hydrochar, which can be applied in soil improvement, energy storage, and environmental remediation.
• Graphite and Graphene Production: RISE develops conventional and novel methods to turn biomass such as lignin into high-performance graphite and graphene. There is lab-scale equipment to support the development of furnace-based graphite as well as laser-induced graphene.
• Hard Carbon Production for Batteries: RISE develops hard carbon anodes from biowaste such as spent coffee grounds, or pulp mill side-streams like lignin. This is part of the initiative that addresses the growing demand for battery-grade carbon materials.

Examples of Innovation Projects within hard carbons:

Valorisation of Coffee Waste for Battery Materials – “Waste to Watt?” highlights that demand for graphite and hard carbon in batteries is expected to rise dramatically and involves processing spent coffee beans through carbonisation steps to produce hard carbon anodes for lithium-ion and sodium-ion batteries. 

Another example where RISE uses its significant expertise in carbonisation processes is in Hydrothermal Carbonisation (HTC) of Sludge, where biosludge is turned into valuable carbon materials. RISE operates both lab-scale and pilot-scale HTC reactors in Stockholm and Örnsköldsvik, demonstrating its capability to scale up biomass carbonisation technologies. 

RISE is also at the forefront of graphitisation research – converting amorphous carbon from biomass into graphite. The Advancing Biobased Graphite Production for Energy Technologies project (BioGraph) demonstrates this by using laser-induced graphitisation to transform biomass into high-quality graphite and graphene. This innovative approach produces conductive carbon materials for advanced energy storage applications (such as supercapacitors and battery electrodes) using renewable resources. The Greenwave 2 project (Sustainable Graphite from Biomass | RISE) explores the possibility of using microwaves for the graphitization of biomass.

RISE conducts extensive research on nanocellulose and its use in active material applications. Below is a summary of what is offered in the field of active materials.

Active bio-based composites: By combining nanocellulose with a variety of active components, such as graphene, activated carbon, carbon nanotubes, conductive polymers, and inorganic nanoparticles, functional composites with tailored properties can be created. 

Printed electronics and energy devices: RISE develops electronic components and energy storage devices using nanocellulose-based materials. Notably, printed batteries and supercapacitors on paper-like cellulose substrates have been manufactured. By combining nanocellulose with electroactive materials, conducting and charge-storing papers that can function as batteries or ultracapacitors, as well as printable sensors, transistors, antennas, and even actuators built from cellulose composites, have been demonstrated.

Photocatalytic & sensing paper:  Photocatalytic, optoelectronic and sensing papers have been created by integrating nanocellulose with photocatalytic zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles. For applications such as air or water purifying applications.

RISE’s Sustainable Materials and Packaging department offers a broad array of advanced analytical techniques and instruments for comprehensive material characterisation. These capabilities support the development of polymers, composites, fibres, coatings, and packaging materials. Key analytical techniques include:

• Microscopy (SEM, AFM) – SEM and AFM provide high-resolution imaging of material surfaces and microstructures. Fibre morphologies, polymer blend distributions, or coating layers can be studied in detail.
• Spectroscopy (FTIR, Raman, NMR, XPS) – These spectroscopic tools allow the verification of the chemical makeup of new materials (e.g., confirming a bio-coating’s polymer structure or the presence of a desired functional group on a modified fibre surface) and ensure consistency in production.
• Chromatography & Mass Spectrometry (GC–MS, LC–MS, GPC) – GC–MS and LC–MS enable identification and quantification of chemical compounds, including residual monomers, extractables or off-odour volatiles from materials, whereas GPC (SEC) measures molecular weight distributions of polymers.
• Thermal Analysis (TGA, DSC) – These techniques reveal thermal stability and composition, e.g., moisture or filler content (TGA), and measure heat flow to detect transitions like melting points, glass transition temperatures, or crystallisation behaviour (DSC) to provide info about a material’s thermal tolerance and phase behaviour.
• Mechanical & Rheological Testing (DMA, Tensile, Rheometry) – DMA probes viscoelastic properties (stiffness and damping) over a range of temperatures or frequencies, indicating how a material’s modulus changes with heat or under cyclic loading. Standard tensile, compression, tear, and impact tests quantify strength and toughness improvements, and Rheometers measure the flow and deformation of liquids or pastes. Overall, RISE’s mechanical and rheological testing helps ensure that new materials meet the required strength and processability criteria before scaling up.
• X-ray Analysis (XRD, SAXS/WAXS, 3D X-ray Imaging) – X-ray Diffraction (XRD) identifies crystalline structures in materials (e.g., cellulose crystallinity in fibres, or polymorphs in pharmaceutical formulations). Small- and Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS/WAXS), probe nano- to micro-scale structures – for example, to check the dispersion of clay platelets in a nanocomposite or the pore structure in a bio-foam. RISE also has access to advanced 3D X-ray tomography, including synchrotron facilities, to non-destructively image the internal structure of materials at very high resolution.