Evaluation Report Publications of the Academy of Finland 1/11

4.41 Åbo Akademi University, Wood and Paper Chemistry
Overview
The Laboratory of Wood and Paper Chemistry in the Department of Chemical 
Engineering is one of the four units that constitute the Process Chemistry Centre of 
ÅA, a Centre of Excellence of the Academy of Finland in 2000–2005 and 2006–2011 
(in the second period within the framework of “Sustainable Chemistry in Production 
of Pulp and Paper, Fuels and Energy, and Functional Materials”).
In the evaluation period, the unit has had an average staff of one professor, some 
three senior researchers and three postdoctoral researchers, as well as 14 PhD 
students. The group is supported by one administrative staff member and two 
technicians.
Of the unit’s annual budget, about one-third comes from core funding. The 
majority of the external funding comes from Tekes and industry, the two funding 
sources contributing in total about 50 per cent of the unit’s total funding. The 
Academy of Finland and the graduate school programme account for the remaining 
20 per cent.
Research
The unit’s research direction was changed two years ago, as a result of the 
appointment of a new professor replacing the former unit head. Analytical tools are 
very important, and the unit benefits from close collaboration with the ÅA 
Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry. The unit’s work concerns the chemistry of 
components contained in wood, with particular attention paid to the whole value 
chain so that potentially valuable products in numerous parts of different kinds of 
biomass can be identified and their separation envisaged (e.g. lignans in the knots of 
spruce wood). There are also other teams in Finland focusing on this area of 
chemistry.

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