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The Finnish Centre for Nanocellulosic Technologies, founded by VTT, the Aalto University and UPM, began operations on 1 March 2008 in Otaniemi, Espoo. The goal of the centre is to develop an industrial-scale production process for nanocellulose and to develop new uses for cellulose as a material.

The centre is a consortium of three equal partners, and is funded by both public and private investments.

Cellulose fibres are 30 micrometres wide and 2 to 3 millimetres long. They are formed of nanofibrils, the dimensions of which are about a thousandth of the dimensions of cellulose fibres. By mixing nanocellulose with various other materials, it is possible to manufacture new, light and strong compound materials which can be utilised in many industrial and consumer applications.

Large investments in research

It is the goal of the Finnish Centre for Nanocellulosic Technologies to utilise the exceptional properties of nanocellulose in improving the competitiveness of existing products and developing entirely new kinds of products. The centre is able to produce different kinds of nanocellulose in a controlled manner on a laboratory scale. A comprehensive set of measurement technologies has also been developed for the characterisation of the materials produced, for example the characterisation of quality, evenness and particle size.

Some 40 researchers are involved in the operations of the Finnish Centre for Nanocellulosic Technologies. According to Pia Qvintus, Technology Manager at VTT, investments are many times larger than conventional research projects.

“Because we have as many as 40 person-years available to us, with top-grade expertise, the Centre’s research has quickly reached global standards.”

Widely applicable technology

Nanocellulose can be utilised widely in different industrial fields and products. Its applications include specialty papers, paper coatings, packaging and building products. The construction, vehicle, furniture, electronics, food, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries can also create added value for their products by using customised fibre materials.

One example of the effectiveness of nanocellulose is the innovation developed by the Finnish Centre for Nanocellulosic Technologies in which nanotechnology is used to improve the durability of a coat of paint. The Finnish Centre for Nanocellulosic Technologies has researched the utilisation of nanocellulose as an additive in water-based polyurethane varnishes and paints. According to this research, nanocellulose improved the durability of the coat of paint, and protected paint and varnish from attrition caused by UV radiation.

Nanocellulose is also believed to have great potential in filter and membrane applications used in water and air purification. Nanocellulose can also be used to improve the strength and durability characteristics of current bio-plastics.

Utilisation of new technologies is one possibility of improving the competitiveness of the forest industry in a changing operating environment. By combining basic research, applied research, productization and business competence, the partners aim to speed up the launch of new profitable products on the global market in the near future.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Kemira Oyj are opening a new joint R&D center in São Paulo, Brazil. The research and development center will focus primarily on water chemistry and biomass utilisation applications. The center will start operations in the end of 2010.

The new center is a continuum for the Center of Water Efficiency Excellence, which Kemira initially established together with VTT in Finland. The center in São Paulo aims to implement the newest water technology research in the growing South American market. Important focus areas will be biomass, bioethanol, pulp and applications for the oil and mining industries.

“This research and development center in São Paulo is the fourth part in Kemira’s R&D center network that we need for executing our growth strategy. Kemira has been investing in building a strong technology platform and developing new water chemistry applications for various industries. A strong presence in emerging markets is essential for technology transfer and extracting signals from the market. Now we will have a network capable of conducting focused research and development for the South American market”, says Harri Kerminen, President and CEO of Kemira.

“Our cooperation round the Center of Water Efficiency Excellence ensures a strong platform for serving our customers in South America. It is also a possibility to work together with one of the most important European Research Institutes, improving our local capabilities to develop customized solutions. In the long-term perspective, we can jointly develop new solutions in areas with high market potential, such as applications for biomass, mining, forestry and oil industry”, says Hilton Casas de Almeida, Region Head for South America, Kemira Oyj.

"An on-site research facility in São Paulo enables VTT to support Finnish businesses in the growing South American market as well as develop its research collaboration in a very efficient way. This can’t be done without being present in local markets in South America. Here in South America, Kemira is an important partner for VTT, and establishing research facilities in Brazil supports VTT’s internationalization strategy especially in the fields of industrial biotechnology and the forest sector”, says Erkki KM Leppävuori, CEO of VTT.

The primary function of VTT’s new unit in Brazil will be to form partnerships with local enterprises and research institutions in turning biomass into chemicals, energy (biofuels), and pulp-based products. In addition to Kemira, VTT also hopes to form close partnerships with other Finnish enterprises in Brazil. Finnish industrial companies are already operating in the country and many have invested heavily in the local market.

VTT aims to grow the new unit into a team of 10 research scientists by the end of 2011 and a genuine research centre of 15 - 20 employees by the end of 2012. The Brazilian unit will operate under VTT International Ltd as part of VTT Group.

For more info contact:

Erkki Leppävuori
President & CEO
+358 20 722 4100

Petri Kalliokoski
VTT International Ltd, CEO
+358 20 722 4767

Johan Grön
Kemira Oyj, Executive Vice President, R&D and Technology
+358 10 862 1058

Source: VTT

ICSTI ’s (International Council for Scientific and Technical Information) Annual Conference will take place in Finland for the first time next June. Canada hosted the 2009 conference, Korea the 2008 conference, and the next host in 2011 will be China. ICSTI offers a unique forum for interaction between organizations that create, disseminate and use scientific and technical information. ICSTI's mission cuts across scientific and technical disciplines, as well as international borders, to give member organizations the benefit of a truly global community. The Society for Finnish Information Specialists, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the National Board of Patents and Registration of Finland are the organizers of this year’s conference in Helsinki.

"From Information to Innovation" has been chosen as the main theme of the conference. It sheds light on the significance of information as the enabler and catalyst of scientific, technical and business developments and provides elements of success in building the future. From Information to Innovation” will focus on inspiring sub-themes:

* Information as the lifeblood of research and innovation – Finnish cases
* Intelligent information solutions and services
* Creating the future – towards the global innovation economy.

The programme features e.g. the following significant Finnish and international opinion leaders and experts as speakers: Mikko Kosonen from Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund, Petri Peltonen from the Finnish Ministry of Employment and the Economy, Lee-Ann Coleman from the British Library, Jay Katzen from Elsevier, Jussi Oijala from KONE Corporation, Adam Bly from Seed Media Group, Juan-Carlos Sobrino from Nature Publishing, Mika Waris from the National Board of Patents and Registration of Finland, Juha Korkeila from Tekes, the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation, and Erkki KM Leppävuori, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

The conference and exhibition will give you and your organization impulses and examples of a new mind-set and tools for future success in how to benefit more from existing information and innovative solutions. You’ll have an excellent chance to orient yourself to future innovation competencies and to experiment with innovative information tools.

Who should attend?

* information and knowledge professionals and chief information officers
* executives from private, academic and government sectors
* executives, research and innovation professionals
* information service providers
* publishers and providers of online information
* management and innovation consultants
* science researchers.

Please, register by May 31, 2010. Take advantage of the early bird registration date by April 14, 2010.

More information: http://www.vtt.fi/icsti2010

The forest industry is to donate €4 million to the starting endowment of the Aalto University in order to strengthen the forest-based sector’s innovation environment in Finland.

Forest industry companies are seeking out top international universities as cooperation partners in their effort to create new products and services. The Aalto University is counted among these top schools.

It is important that sufficient financial resources are made available for it to rise into the global elite with regards to its research and teaching activities. This will enable it to support the renewal of the forest industry as well.

The forest cluster’s research strategy has steered industry research and teaching activities towards key areas of growth. Forestcluster Ltd, Finland’s first Strategic Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation, and Finnish Wood Research Ltd, an agency that networks the wood products cluster’s joint research and development activities, provide resources for significant projects, which promote the renewal of the forest industry.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Keskuslaboratorio (KCL), an organisation specialising in forest industry research, were merged into an internationally unique concentration of competence last year. The Aalto University professorship, which was donated by the forest industry, will promote the teaching of wood construction specialists as well as strengthen the regeneration of the forest-based sector through education.

Further information:

Antro Säilä, Senior Vice President (Business and Innovation Environment),
tel. +358 9 132 6633, +358 40 589 1891

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed new pretreatment and curing methods that can be used with the sol-gel coating process. With the new pretreatment method, the adhesion of sol-gel coatings can be improved significantly. The method is based on the use of modified CO2 dry ice with particles. It is environmentally friendly and does not cause as much waste as traditional cleaning methods. Another new method is connected with curing sol-gel coatings. It makes use of the thermal energy stored in pieces, instead of separate curing process. VTT has submitted a patent application for both methods.

The advantage of pretreatment with modified dry ice is that after treatment, the surface does not become oxidized as easily as when other methods such as chemical pretreatment are used. Another advantage for any substrate is that the treatment does not give rise to the large amounts of waste produced using traditional cleaning wet methods, such as chemical baths and generated wastewater.

In the new coating curing method, the thermal energy stored in the piece to be coated is used in the thermal curing of the sol-gel coating. This method has already been applied successfully to hot-dip galvanized and thermally sprayed products. This was demonstrated several times by applying the coating to hot-dip galvanized trailers, bicycle frames, timber sills, and pieces with thermally sprayed coating.

The project family also developed the mouldability properties and manufacturability of the coatings for use at an industrial scale. The project demonstrated the suitability of the sol-gel coating and the preceding pretreatment phases for a manufacturing process involving the roll-to-roll coating of sheet metal strips.

For the pretreatment of the sol-gel coating in production, it was found that electropolishing (the PET method, electropolishing with electric discharge) can also be used in continuous processes in where environmentally friendly bath are used as electrolytes. The use of carbon dioxide dry ice blowing in the roll-to-roll process was also found to give the coating sufficient adhesion and lend itself to the process in other respects, too. In terms of the environmental friendliness of the sol-gel coatings, all the coatings used in the projects were found to be below the current limit values of the VOC Directive (Volatile Organic Compounds).

With the sol-gel coatings, it was even possible to essentially improve the functional properties of different material surfaces, such as dirt repellence, easy to clean, corrosion and oxidization resistance, anti-scratch properties and wear resistance. However, thin film coatings of the type investigated here do not always provide sufficient corrosion resistance in demanding outdoor conditions. The best results in field corrosion tests were obtained for sol-gel coatings almost as thick as a coat of paint/varnish (even as much as 50 μm). The best combination of thin coating and base material in outdoor conditions was sol-gel coating applied to hot-dip galvanized steel.

Kemira Oyj and VTT (Technical Research Centre of Finland) will establish a Center of Water Efficiency Excellence in Finland. The total cost of the research, which will be performed at the center, is estimated at 120 M€, including external funding. The investments will be allocated into 4 years, resulting further investment activities in projects for piloting and proof on concept purposes. The center will employ 200 persons annually.

The current Finnish competence of the water sector is being gathered into one center. The goal is to develop unique water knowledge to Finland and to create new business opportunities for companies in the environmental technology sector. The research center supports Kemira's strategic target to become a leading water chemistry company and to promote profitable growth by generating new business in the already strong field of water knowledge. Kemira will arrange a press conference today, March 9 at 10.15 (Helsinki time), including presentations by Harri Kerminen, Kemira's President and CEO, along with Paula Lehtomäki, Minister of the Environment, Johan Grön, Kemira EVP of R&D and Technology, and Erkki KM Leppävuori, President and CEO of VTT.

The main partners of the Center of Water Efficiency Excellence are Kemira and VTT. "The aim is to develop new technology, which helps to enhance the water usage and recycling, and to create more sustainable and energy-efficient solutions for the water intensive industry. When choosing the research sectors, one of the main selection criteria has been the growth of the global markets. Some examples of the research sectors are the cost-efficient cultivation of sea water into drinkable water, the utilization of bio mass resulting from the waste water treatment in production processes of energy and bio energy, and the decomposition of products", says Johan Grön.

"Already today, Kemira is one of the leading water chemistry companies globally. We have operations in 40 countries, an experience of decades in water technology, and a wide competence for different needs in water management. For Kemira, this is a strategic project, in which we are looking for growth based on new products and customer relations. The lack of water and the problems caused by it is a sizable challenge globally for industries and megacities. The regions suffering from water scarcity are usually those where the industrial and population growth is the most rapid. This is why the water-intensive industry is constantly looking for solutions to improve their water efficiency. Normally, the water availability is not a problem in Finland but we have competencies to solve the challenges caused by water scarcity. For Kemira and other environmental technology companies, this provides growth opportunities", says Harri Kerminen.

''VTT has the know how and the structure that can combine different fields of technologies and expertise that meet well with the qualifications in developing new and open-minded environment and water technology. I believe that those products that are being developed in a center based on top expertise and know how meet high market demands and possess growing international potential. I also hope that this will open up a new commercialization of technology opportunity where top end technology can be exploited in water purification, recycling, monitoring and treatment of process waters'', says VTT's President & CEO Erkki KM Leppävuori. According to Veli-Pekka Saarnivaara, CEO, Tekes (the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation), "Tekes wants to be actively involved in this project and in constructing a strong basis for competence in Finland, and in new business activities in order to solve a growing global problem".

Press Conference
March 9, 2010 at 10.15 (EET), at Gallery Kalhama & Piippo Contemporary, Mannerheimintie 3 B, 5th floor (Helsinki, Finland). The conference is in Finnish. The material is available in Finnish and English on the Kemira web site. Further information: Anna-Kaisa Säkkinen, phone +358 50 387 6293.

Kemira Oyj
Päivi Antola, Senior Manager, Investor Relations and Financial Communications

Further information:

Kemira Oyj
Johan Grön, EVP, R&D and Technology,
Phone +358 10 862 1058
Leena Lie, VP of Communications
Phone +358 40 7457943

VTT
Kari Larjava, Vice President
Phone +358 40 500 9673

Kemira is a global 2.5 billion euro chemicals company that is focused on serving customers in water-intensive industries. The company offers water quality and quantity management that improves customers' energy, water, and raw material efficiency. Kemira's vision is to be a leading water chemistry company. Its paints and coatings business, Tikkurila, aims to be the market leader in decorative paints and selected wood and metal coatings in chosen markets.

www.kemira.com
www.waterfootprintkemira.com

VTT, Technical Research Centre of Finland, is the biggest multi-technological applied research organisation in Northern Europe. VTT provides high-end technology solutions and innovation services for domestic and international customers, companies, and the public sector. The personnel count of VTT is 2,900.

www.vtt.fi

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