New EU funding for research on nanocellulose composites

Members of the project group are professor Magnus Norgren and the researchers of the group Surface and Colloid Engineering at FSCN research centre. Other cooperation partners are SCA, Domsjö, Bergmans Fisk, ÖSAB, Rödins Trä, Trondelag Fylkeskommune and Kvanne Industrier in Norway.   

FoamFiber will use nanocellulose-cellulose composites to replace fossil plastic products, in order to meet the major climate challenges in today's society. The project will focus in particular on further developing a concept for producing fiber-based, foamed materials that have low density and high porosity, in addition to having barrier properties such as wet stability. Production of prototypes, as well as recycling of the material will also be in focus in the project.

FoamFiber is a further development of the previous interreg project PlastiCel where a fine cross-border collaboration gave rise to such interesting results that the same core group now wants to work further and refine these. The purpose of the new project is to build on the results in foam forming, ie further develop the technology to produce cellulose-based lightweight and porous materials that can replace materials based on fossil resources, primarily in the packaging industry but also other applications.

The goal is to design, optimize and produce a green alternative that in the long run will be able to compete and take market shares from materials based on plastic, which is a finite resource but also a major environmental problem. The value chain for the plastic packaging industry today is largely linear where extraction from the earth's finite resources takes place at a high speed and this acceleration is predicted to increase, not least now in pandemic times, e-commerce has taken an even bigger step forward.

For more information please contact professor Magnus Norgren, FSCN research centre, Mid Sweden University.