Displaying items by tag: vtt

At the beginning of 2021 VTT started to buy renewable electricity verified with a guarantee of origin for its premises. The change significantly reduced the annual greenhouse gas emissions from VTT's operations. Meanwhile, it is an important step toward VTT's goal of carbon neutrality.

Sustainability is at the core of VTT's strategy, and with respect to environmental responsibility, the goals include carbon neutrality by 2030. This requires significant action aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

vtt logo 2022Consumption of electricity has been the overwhelming source of emissions caused by VTT activities. The transition to renewable electricity verified by a guarantee of origin changed the situation.

“The estimated greenhouse gas emissions from electricity bought by VTT were more than 9,000 tons in 2020. In 2021 this had gone down to about 600 tons. The change is truly significant”, says Senior Scientist Hanna Pihkola. In 2021 93% of the electricity consumed by VTT was under a guarantee of origin.

As the production of renewable energy also produces greenhouse gas emissions, the shift to renewable energy raised indirect emissions connected with VTT operations to some degree. However, the increase is fairly small compared with the reduction of emissions from the use of electricity.

Next attention to heating, air travel, and procurements

The reduction in emissions from the use of electricity is taking VTT closer to its carbon neutrality goal, but much work remains to be done. After the use of electricity, the greatest emissions caused by VTT come from the heating of buildings and air travel.

VTT's next development targets on the way to the carbon neutrality goal of 2030 are:

  • ascertaining the possibilities of procuring low-emission, or carbon neutral district heating
  • improving energy efficiency
  • reducing flight emissions
  • taking climate impact into account in the procurement of goods and services.

“Carbon neutrality by 2030 is an ambitious goal. To achieve the goal, much work needs to be done and many stones need to be turned in different parts of the organisation. When all possible measures to reduce them have been implemented, we will also have to ponder how best to compensate for the emissions that remain”, Pihkola says.

VTT's annual greenhouse gas emissions have been evaluated according to the principles of the ISO14064-1:2018 (carbon footprint calculations for an organisation) standard since 2018. The emissions are reported as part of VTT's annual and corporate responsibility report.

VTT is a visionary research, development and innovation partner. We drive sustainable growth and tackle the biggest global challenges of our time, and turn them into growth opportunities. We go beyond the obvious to help the society and companies to grow through technological innovations. We have 80 years of experience of top-level research and science-based results. VTT is at the sweet spot where innovation and business come together.

VTT – beyond the obvious

www.vttresearch.com

Published in Power & water
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VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is piloting a new transparent cellulose film that reduces microplastic.  

Food packages fulfil their most important tasks when they protect food and minimise waste. Thin plastic films are nevertheless difficult to recycle, and they often end up in the wrong places after use. 

VTT has developed a solution to the problem of plastic packaging. Regenerated or recrystallised cellulose can replace plastic films. 

Technology Manager Heli KangasTechnology Manager Heli Kangas

“We can produce transparent and flexible cellulose film. The consumer cannot distinguish between the crystal-clear material and traditional oil-based plastic. Cellulose film can resist dampness, but in nature it disappears as completely as a sheet of paper does. The product is biobased and biodegradable”, says VTT Research Professor Ali Harlin

In addition to their protective properties, plastics are important because consumers want packages that allow them to see the product itself. However, once they have been used, many packages are sources of problems. If a package has both paper and plastic, the consumer may wonder if it can be recycled with cardboard, or if the plastic needs to be torn off first. Some of the materials have alternating layers of fibre and plastic. Many packages are placed among mixed waste by people who cannot think of a better way of disposing of it. Plastic that ends up in a cardboard recycling bin can be removed, but the plastic usually ends up incinerated. 

“The cellulose film developed by VTT can replace plastic as a more climate-friendly solution. It also makes recycling easy, as it can be placed in cardboard recycling along with other packages”, says Atte Virtanen, Vice President, for Biomaterial processing and products at VTT. 

Cellulose film pilot line in VTT BioruukkiCellulose film pilot line in VTT Bioruukki

Finland remains far from the goals set by the EU for reducing the environmental harm caused by plastics. At present, about 20 percent of plastics are collected, and even less end up recycled. Under the EU target, 55 percent of plastics should be recycled by 2025. 

Plastic film market is worth 110 billion dollars 

Finland is currently more of a packaging material country than a printing paper country. Last year the value of sales of cardboard exceeded that of paper for the first time. The forest industry is looking for new products with a big market, which brings value-added. Flexible, transparent cellulose film is one such product. The world market for plastic films was about 110 billion dollars last year. 

VTT's unique expertise has been used in cellulose film as a replacement for plastic. 
“VTT has researched cellulose films for more than ten years, and for more than six years on regenerated cellulose in transparent films”, Virtanen says. 

The production of packaging material is in the pilot phase, and it could be in extensive industrial use in 5–7 years. 

VTT is a visionary research, development and innovation partner. We drive sustainable growth and tackle the biggest global challenges of our time, and turn them into growth opportunities. We go beyond the obvious to help society and companies to grow through technological innovations. We have 80 years of experience in top-level research and science-based results. VTT is at the sweet spot where innovation and business come together.

VTT – beyond the obvious

Published in Food & Materials
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Microalgae are a promising feedstock for a large number of products such as fuel, food and materials. At the same time, algae are able to fix large amounts of CO2 that they use for growth. Approximately 50% of the algae biomass is carbon, and as such, microalgae hold great potential to support efforts to tackle climate change. However, large-scale algae farming faces technical challenges that hinder widespread economically successful applications. VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland is coordinating a two-year research project involving the University of Jyväskylä, Neste and seven Finnish SMEs, jointly addressing some of the bottlenecks in large-scale algal cultivation.

Project ROBA – Robust Algae Systems, funded by Business Finland, aims to tackle hurdles to create economically feasible algae processes through a combination of modelling, advanced measurement technology, bioprocess engineering, machine learning and synthetic biology. 

“Microalgae are one of the potential renewable and scalable future raw materials that Neste is developing, with the aim to expand our renewable raw material pool to support the future growth of renewables production. We are also looking for all possible solutions to reduce emissions in order to meet our ambitious goal of carbon-neutral production by 2035. Activities in the ROBA project will contribute to these targets by focusing on a concept for refinery CO2 capture with microalgae and by developing monitoring methods that could be utilized in large-scale algae cultivation,” explains Jason Michael Blake, Vice President of Innovation, Business Platform Aviation Feedstock, at Neste.

2022 06 01 101934

One bottleneck in algae cultivations to be addressed is the monitoring of contamination, which currently is a challenge in large-scale processes and can lead to the loss of entire cultures. In ROBA, a series of optical and other online methods will be explored. The measurement technologies to be developed in the project will be applicable also to other biotechnological processes.

“Industrial biotechnology is becoming more and more an important part of sustainable industrial practices. Our aim is to develop intensification methods for large-scale algal cultivation. Innovative measurement and monitoring technologies will help us to move towards efficient and economically feasible production processes,” says Mervi Toivari, Principal Scientist at VTT.

Machine learning promises to take process monitoring even one step further, by combining various information received from the process into a more complete picture. 

“This is a new opening to develop a novel on-site observer and computational methods for the needs of microalgae biotechnology. The Spectral Imaging Laboratory at the University of Jyväskylä focuses on developing a non-invasive monitoring method based on hyperspectral imager technology. Monitoring the growth and product accumulation of microalgae and detecting contamination are the key areas for the development,” says Pauliina Salmi, Postdoctoral Researcher from the University of Jyväskylä.

More about the project
ROBA’s total budget is 1.4 M€ and its main funder is Business Finland. ROBA is one of the ecosystem projects of Neste Veturi. In addition to VTT, the University of Jyväskylä, Business Finland and Neste, the following companies are also participating in the project: Agri-Biotech, Aircohol, Owatec, Pixact, Soilfood, Specim and Timegate. The partners are supporting the project with valuable expertise and insight into measurement technologies in bioprocesses, photobioreactor configurations, products from algae biomass and process equipment.

VTT is a visionary research, development and innovation partner. We drive sustainable growth and tackle the biggest global challenges of our time, and turn them into growth opportunities. We go beyond the obvious to help society and companies to grow through technological innovations. We have 80 years of experience in top-level research and science-based results. VTT is at the sweet spot where innovation and business come together.

VTT – beyond the obvious

www.vttresearch.com

Published in Green Industry
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Forests play a key role in reducing the effects of climate change. The requirements for monitoring carbon balance are growing constantly and the monitoring methods have developed fast. Forest Carbon Monitoring (FCM) is a project led by VTT Technical Research Centre of FInland and financed by the European Space Agency ESA, aiming to create a new forest carbon service for forest operators’ needs.

The obligations for reporting forest carbon balance have increased significantly. Companies report their carbon balances for verification of forest certificates and try to respond to consumers’ growing expectations. Administrative organizations must report carbon balances of their countries or parts of them to meet the requirements of international agreements, for example. The new forest carbon service will help different forest operators by making suitable monitoring methods available for them.

New methods and satellites help to monitor forest carbon. Forest areas can now be imaged with increasing frequency and spatial resolution: the resolution for images taken every few days is now commonly 10-20 meters, while 10 years ago it was up to a kilometer. As the resolution and frequency grow, so does the amount of data. This has required development of new cloud services for managing the data and images.

vtt logo 2021Forest carbon service brings new methods within reach of forest operators

FCM project brings together the new technology and the forest operators’ evolving needs.

“The project starts with a user interview period. The aim is to find out what kind of data the users need to fulfill their forest carbon monitoring and reporting requirements. Based on this information we will build a service that includes a variety of monitoring methods to serve different user groups. The service will help different types of users from companies operating in limited areas to national administrative agencies and international organizations. Within the project, we will be using service design methods to help bring the user needs to life and help the project partners co-create the best possible solution ideas together. The demonstration will include seven target areas in Europe and one in Peru, ranging from local case studies to European wide mapping”, describes Senior Scientist Jukka Miettinen from VTT.

The forest carbon service will provide the forest operators with reliable data that fits their needs. It utilizes data provided by forest operators, satellite imagery and other data sources. When a user orders data, the service provider chooses optimal monitoring method, produces the outputs, and sends them back to the user.

“The outputs consist of traditional forest variables, such as species distribution, age or height of the trees, or forest area. This information enables modelling forest biomass and carbon and, in future, forecasting their development”, Miettinen says.

Based on VTT’s long-term work on forest monitoring

VTT has strong expertise on big data processing, remote sensing and monitoring natural resources. Know-how in forest monitoring has been built up during years in various projects financed by EU and ESA, and FCM continues this tradition. It utilizes services developed in the EU Forest Flux project and technical solutions built in Forest Digital Twin. Forest carbon service will be built on VTT’s Forest Thematic Exploitation Platform, which is already widely used. A service ecosystem where different service providers can offer their computing and analysis services for the forest industry and operators will be built around the forest carbon service.

“VTT participates in most of the components and coordinates the entire project. The aim of all this work is to help forest operators and politicians in decisions related to forests”, Miettinen concludes.

More information about the project:

The Forest Carbon Monitoring (FCM) project started in July 2021 and will last for two years.  VTT coordinates the project, which is carried out by a consortium with eight partners. The consortium brings together world’s leading expertise in forest stakeholder interaction, forest biomass mapping, carbon monitoring and modelling. In addition to VTT, the consortium includes AFRY, European Forest Institute, Gamma RS, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Natural Resources Institute Finland, Satellio (Terramonitor), Simosol and the University of Helsinki. The project is funded by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the budget is 1.7 M€.

VTT is a visionary research, development and innovation partner. We drive sustainable growth and tackle the biggest global challenges of our time, and turn them into growth opportunities. We go beyond the obvious to help the society and companies to grow through technological innovations. We have almost 80 years of experience of top-level research and science-based results. VTT is at the sweet spot where innovation and business come together.

VTT – beyond the obvious

www.vttresearch.com

Published in Green Industry
Tagged under