About us
From legacy to future
For centuries, forest industry has been the backbone of Finnish economy. Even with multiple pulp mill close-downs in the last decades, Finland remains as one of the global leaders in the pulp and paper industry with an arsenal of exquisite know-hows, a dynamic research environment, the state-of-the-art infrastructure and, above all, the top-of-the-line forest management system.
Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems and
Biorefineries research group
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The Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems (Bio2) is at the forefront of forest products technologies and cutting-edge biotechnology. Ultimately, the activities in Bio2 result in innovative products and solutions for applications ranging from construction and textiles to biomaterials, energy and biomedicine. The research at the Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems focuses on products derived from nature through green chemistry or biotechnological methods. Our department’s core competencies include synthetic biology, biochemical and biotechnical processing, the chemistry of lignocellulosic materials, pre-treatment and fractionation of biomass, downstream unit operations as well as the characterization and analysis of materials. Bio2 is internationally recognised for its multidisciplinary engineering education development in digitalised and online learning environments.
Biorefineries research group is led by Prof. Herbert Sixta. The group's research covers the entire value chain from the fractionation of the lignocellulosic biomass to valorization of the isolated biopolymers, with the aim of sustainably producing commodities analogous to fossil-based products.
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Department of Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering and Chemical Engineering research group
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The unique competitive edge of the department is based on sustainable utilization of raw materials, designing more efficient processes and developing new materials and products. Our department’s areas of expertise enable sustainable future with high performance products and processes in circular economy and bioeconomy. The department is in a key position in research of chemical engineering, materials technology, metals processing, efficient energy technologies and digitalization of these. Our core competences include unit operations and processes in chemical engineering, hydro- and pyro-metallurgy, catalyst and polymeric materials, novel catalytic process, process control and process systems engineering.
Chemical engineering research group, led by Ville Alopaeus, has a strong tradition in practical industrial collaboration. The research methodology is based on natural sciences and mechanistic modelling of chemical processes. The research aims at developing methodology and tools that allow fast and reliable development and scale-up of new industrial chemical processes. Teaching in Chemical engineering aims at development of generic skills and fundamental understanding of chemical processes. This understanding can be applied in a wide variety of chemical technology fields and practical applications.
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Partners
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Functional Cellulose group, VTT.
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Synthetic Organic Chemistry research group, Department of Chemistry and Materials Science, Aalto University.