Gunnar Sundblads Young Researcher's award

Wed 14 Apr 2021 08:24

Dr. Jessica Timmerfors' thesis on wood chips has been awarded the Young Researcher's Award. This is the first time the prize has been awarded. She will use a scholarship of 400,000 in her research on sawmill chips. Jessica works at More Research in Örnsköldsvik.

jessica Timmerfors

Per Engstrand and Per Gradin, both at Mid Sweden University, have long worked to open up a research area in chipping technology to study, among other things, the impact of chopping angles on different properties of the finished chip.

Their latest venture led to MoRe Research hiring Jessica Timmerfors, who is now doing a postdoc in the field of sawmill chips. One of the activities in the project is to construct a pilot equipment for reducing log cross-sections where the effect of cutting angles, speeds and feed speeds on the chips' properties is to be studied.

“Our research on optimizing wood chipping based on pulpwood has so far shown that it is possible to reduce electricity energy consumption in the production of TMP and CTMP by almost 200 kWh/h and that it is possible to significantly improve the impregnation speed. It is important to study whether the corresponding optimization of the chip properties can be done in the reducing process used by modern sawmills”, says Per Engstrand, professor at Mid Sweden University, FSCN research centre.

Jessica completed her PhD studies at Umeå University at the end of August 2020 and looks forward to working closely with researchers at Mid Sweden University.

"Considering that 30-40% of the chips used in the Swedish paper and pulp industry consist of sawmill chips, it is realized that research in this area is of great importance," says Per Gradin, former professor at Mid Sweden University, FSCN research centre.

“I was both happy and shocked when I first moved on in the selection process, but was still so sure that I did not win, so when I got the call I had steeled myself for a negative message. I barely heard when they said I won, "says Jessica about her reaction to the award." I am so grateful that chipping, which is an industrial process, can finally be seen a little, as it is an important area of ​​research. "

The Young Researchers' Award is a new prize instituted by Gunnar Sundblad's research fund that will be awarded during the forestry week. The prize goes to a researcher who has done research for a maximum of five years after completing a doctorate in research projects with a clear connection to the paper and pulp industry and its products and processes.

Read more in the Forest Industries' press release.


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The page was updated 4/14/2021