Specialist in material characterisation on visit
On 8 April, Nils Skoglund, senior lecturer at the Thermochemical Energy Conversion Laboratory at Umeå University, visited the pilot plant at the Ellinge Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Nils’ research revolves around interactions between elements, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, at high temperatures. For example, he has worked a lot with ashes from mono- and co-incineration of sewage sludge, but he has also worked with sludge biochar. We have now applied for money from Swedish Water and Wastewater Development Fund to be able to involve Nils in Testbed Ellinge.
We hope that Nils can help us understand in depth which components of the sludge that change during the pyrolysis process by studying the local chemistry around and the speciation of important elements, such as plant nutrients and heavy metals, and by analysing the surface and 3D structures of the sludge biochar. We then want to link this information to the plant growth trials we carry out with the sludge biochar.
Nils’ research group uses a variety of analytical methods for material characterisation such as powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy in combination with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM-EDS), vibrational spectroscopy with infrared light and Raman, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller analysis (BET) and synchrotron-based techniques such as X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and X-ray microtomography (XRT).
Nils is currently at the MAX IV synchrotron facility in Lund to use his time slot at the facility day and night together with three other colleagues.
Read more about Nils Skoglund’s research on this page.
On 8 April, Nils Skoglund, senior lecturer at the Thermochemical Energy Conversion Laboratory at Umeå University, visited the pilot plant at the Ellinge Wastewater Treatment Plant.