Dr. Alex Berg, Executive Director of UDT, and Dr. Sebastian Riquelme, Project Engineer at UDT’s R&D Department, are on a research stay at the Institute of Natural Resource Chemistry at BOKU University, headed by Prof. Thomas Rosenau and Prof. Antje Potthast.
“We have been in close contact with researchers and students at the institute and recognise very good possibilities for collaboration on lignin, tannins and nanocellulose. BOKU’s Institute of Natural Resources Chemistry is one of the world’s leading experts in the characterisation of biomass and its components, and UDT is recognised as an expert institution in the development and scale-up of bio-based technologies. So there is a good complementarity,” Dr Berg said.
The stay includes meetings with academics from other institutes to promote joint work related to the production of biochar from biomass and its incorporation into soils as an agricultural amendment.
Dr. Riquelme will participate in the “Course on Chromatographic Analytical Methods for Analysis of Cellulosic Materials”, taught by Dr. Antje Potthast. He has also participated in induction and training for the treatment and preparation of samples for lignin analysis, determination of hydroxyl groups in samples by 31P NMR, determination of functional groups by 2D NMR (COSY, 1H-TOCSY, 1H-13C-HSQC and HMQC), determination of molecular weight distribution and data analysis, among other field activities on wood analysis and its components.
