Speakers September 15, 2022
Lisa Ek
Partner and Managing Director of Nordic Strategy Partners | Board Director Lunova AB, Ditwin AB and Brightnest Group
Moderator
The conference is moderated by Lisa Ek, Managing Director of Nordic Strategy Partners. Lisa has twelve years’ experience as a strategy, innovation and investment expert working mainly for the raw materials sector, space sector and the manufacturing industry. She is leading projects to strengthen Swedish industry’s competitiveness through sustainable and circular strategies and business models.
Introduction to the world’s greenest battery – close the loop with recycling
Northvolt’s mission is to build the greenest battery in the world with a minimal carbon footprint to enable the European transition to renewable energy. Scaling battery recycling within the Revolt program in parallel to a ramp-up in battery manufacturing capacity is at the core of Northvolt’s plans.
Ingemar Ylikangas
Director of Business Development Revolt at Northvolt
Ingemar is leading the business development activities towards Northvolt’s customers within the business unit Revolt, a unit that will supply Northvolt with materials from recycled batteries. Prior to his role at Northvolt, he worked for 20 years in – and together with – leading companies in the manufacturing industry. Ingemar has a master's degree in Industrial Engineering and Management from Luleå University of Technology.
Sweden – the perfect hub for Europe’s battery supply chain
To maximise the global effect of the transition to electric mobility we need to make sure that the entire battery production and its supply chain is CO2 free. If not we are simply moving the emissions from the vehicles to another part of the economy. Here Sweden and the Nordics have a big role to play. Find out why this is and what the effects are by developing the battery supply chain in Sweden and the Nordics.
Christoffer Svanberg
CEO, Node Pole
Christoffer Svanberg is an international business executive with 20 years of experience in transforming and developing companies in the telecom and energy sectors. Today the CEO of Node Pole he is responsible for developing a new industrial era in Sweden. Having attracted among others Northvolt, Microsoft and AWS to Sweden, Node Pole is the premier investment hub for energy intensive industries in the Nordics.
The Sustainable Nordic battery belt from a Finnish perspective
How GigaVaasa will enable possibilities for sustainable manufacturing and what are the ways to minimize total carbon footprint in Finnish and Nordics perspective.
The importance of full Nordic value chain for battery manufacturing.
Marko Kuokkanen
GigaVaasa – Sales & Marketing Director Merinova Technology Centre
Marko Kuokkanen is responsible for the development of sales & marketing of the GigaVaasa battery factory project. Kuokkanen has extensive experience in electricity distribution automation in international business as well as a strong technical background, broad experience of projects and sales and internationalization.
Recycling of Lithium Ion batteries – reflections from a developing market
European battery recycling are facing expected significant increase in volumes, types of material and legislative demands. This will change and transform the industry. Stena would like to share our reflections from establishment of industrial Lithium Ion battery recycling.
Marcus Martinsson
Product Area Manager Batteries, Stena Recycling group
Marcus has been working in Stena since 2015, and since 2019 with Li-Ion battery recycling. Currently heading Stena recycling groups 7+ countries effort to establish an industrial and sustainable capacity for end of life services connected to Lithium Ion batteries and related products. The electrification will have a severe impact on traditional industries and create new ones. With Stena´s industrial recycling capacity and significant portfolio of 6 MT recycled material per year, it is natural for us to also take an industrial position in the European battery recycling landscape.
Opportunities for circular materials research at analytical research infrastructures
The ReMade@ARIE project will provide free, supported access for circular materials researchers to over 50 of Europe’s best analytical research infrastructures. It is scheduled to start in September 2022 and run for four years, and will pioneer a support hub for circular economy materials research in the following priority areas: electronics and ICT, batteries and vehicles, packaging, plastics, textiles, construction and buildings, food, water and nutrients. The techniques available include X-ray, neutron, electron, laser, photon and ion beams, high magnetic fields, and more.
The capabilities of the research infrastructures will be discussed using examples from user experiments at the European Synchrotron (ESRF) and its partners in the ReMade@ARI project.
Gary Admans
Business Development Engineer in the Experiments Division of the European Synchrotron (ESRF)
He joined the ESRF in 1999, after a PhD in chemistry from Exeter University (UK) and post-doctoral research at Toyohashi University of Technology (Japan). His work in the Business Development Office involves bridging between industry and academia and he is currently involved in three European projects: InnovaXN, STREAMLINE and ReMade@ARI.
CE@KTH: leading the transition towards Circular Economy
The Circular Economy (CE) at KTH (CE@KTH) is a strategic initiative working to strengthen CE driven education and research, especially at KTH. The endeavour has been to put together competences and activities related to CE at different schools and departments and develop a common strategy for future education, research and collaboration. CE@KTH also works to expanding collective competence of KTH research and development teams and deliver expert assistance across industries in Sweden. The CE@KTH platform is open for both researchers and industrial partners to join, discuss their challenges and co-create solutions to advance their knowledge in circular economy and its implementation in transition from linear to circular industrial systems.
Amir Rashid
Professor in Manufacturing at the Department of Production Engineering, School of Industrial Engineering and Management, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.
He has a PhD in Production Engineering and more than 15 years of experience in manufacturing industry as well. With strong interest and focus on sustainability in manufacturing, he has a vast experience of leading research at international level, especially through the European framework programmes for research and innovation. Currently he is leading the KTH initiative on circular economy (CE@KTH) and his research team working on circular manufacturing systems.
Research in the area of circular economy and sustainability at Swerim AB
The mining, steel and metals industries are part of the solution to very urgent problems that must be addressed if we are to meet a sustainable future. Swerim AB conducts needs-based industrial research and development concerning metals and their route from raw materials to finished products. With research and development surrounding new materials and innovative methods for resource efficiency, recyclability, we are creating the conditions for more resource-efficient, fossil-free and sustainable industry.
Chuan Wang
Group manager and research leader, Resource Efficiency and Environment, Department of Metallurgy, Swerim
Prof. Wang has been working on the metallurgy process development, ironmaking process simulation and optimization, holistic analysis of the integrated steelmaking process for more than 15 years. In recent years, his research has been focusing on valorizing residual materials from and for the mining and metals industry contributing to a sustainable society. Dr. Wang has been undertaken research work as principal investigators and has been actively involved in many projects financed by Europe Union (EU), regional and national agencies.
Metallic materials, a strategic innovation program
Metallic materials is one of the first five strategic innovation program and it brings together Sweden’s metal producing industries encompassing steel, aluminium, hard metal, steel castings, cast iron and non-ferrous metal castings. The program is now approaching its conclusion and we will reflect on the achievements made so far during the past nine years and present the most resent activities with a special focus on materials and sustainability.
Kristian Skånberg
Research Manager at Jernkontoret, the Swedish iron and steel producers' association.
Previously worked at various positions within the “Swedish model” – academia, politics/authorities, trade unions and the industry, always with questions related to natural resources and sustainability.
Background: research studies at SSE (economics and business administration), SU (systems ecology) and KTH (future studies).
Towards the Recycling of Permanent Magnets through VALOMAG EU project
Neodymium-Iron-Boron (NdFeB) based permanent magnets are indispensable in today’s growing clean energy technologies. VALOMAG project, funded by the EIT RawMaterials, combines different key players (SUEZ, BRGM, CEA, CRM Group, KOLEKTOR, TU Delft and Leiden University) to develop a new value proposition that answers the need of the permanent magnets market. The project develops a technical solution for permanent magnet disassembly of End-of-Life (EoL) products, and also assesses three recycling technologies, two short loop recycling and a third alternative route using hydrometallurgical processes.
Zhijie (Gloria) Li
Postdoc at Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) of Leiden University
Zhijie (Gloria) Li has been working at Industrial Ecology department, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, the Netherlands. Her research interests focus on the circular economy, critical raw materials management towards energy transition, and energy economics. In VALOMAG project, Gloria has been performing life cycle assessment to evaluate the environmental impacts of the magnet recycling technologies, and assessing the supply chain resilience with system dynamics modelling.
Internet of Materials as a concept for circular material traceability
The paper presents the concept of Internet of materials, as enabler of circular economy, life cycle management, ethical procurement, and prolonged product lifetimes. Internet of materials utilizes natural identifiers and artificial physical identifiers on materials and material products to establish the digital twin needed for decision making and life cycle based circular material management for sustainability purposes.
Tatiana Nevzorova
Researcher at RISE in the unit Certification development
She holds a PhD in the subject area of Industrial Engineering and Management. Her research areas primarily lie in the field of sustainability and circular economy, material traceability, resilience and data transparency. She is active in the international standardization in circular economy and currently involved in ISO work on Measuring and assessing the circularity.
Nanostructured functional adsorbents for separation of Rare Earths and Late Transition Metals
Permanent magnets are one of the most promising secondary sources of REEs that can be recycled and reused. One of the key challenges in recycling of magnet materials lies in the need to separate REE from Late Transition Metals (LTM). In the project of MetRecycle our goal was to develop nanosized functional adsorbents for an effective and more environmentally friendly method to separate these metals. The materials were checked for their adsorption, selectivity and reusability properties.
Ani Vardanyan
Postdoc researcher at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in the department of Molecular sciences
Since I have started working at SLU, I was involved in several research projects related to REEs separation, Fly ash recycling and studying natural aluminosilicates for their potential as a cheap and environmentally friendly adsorbents for water purification.
Fossil-free value chain for iron- and steelmaking: Application prospect of paper mill sludge hydrochar as steel production auxiliary
Biological (bio)-sludge from paper mills is a biomass residue with a substantial annual output and contains a large amount of organic matter. Hydrothermal treatment can convert bio-sludge into hydrochar with higher energy density, leading to energy savings and reduced fossil CO2 emissions when used in metallurgical processes. This study evaluates the feasibility of bio-sludge hydrochar for metallurgical applications from the perspective of direct use as powder and in the form of briquettes.
Ludvig Ånnhagen
Research engineer at Swerim AB with a metallurgy background
Resource-efficient recycling of composites via pyrolysis
Fibre reinforced materials (FRP) are complex materials consisting of different materials such as fibre and different polymers, and currently the recycling is often inadequate. Pyrolysis is a promising chemical recycling technology that has potential to recover both the polymers and high-quality fibres. Therefore, this project is a collaboration between a research institute (RISE), technology owner (Scandinavian Enviro Systems) and users (Volvo cars, SAAB and Skellefteå kraft).
To verify the positive lab results in larger scale as well as be able to reuse the fibers and polymers in composite prototypes, a pyrolysis pilot plant was constructed and commissioned within this project. Further, in this project, recycling of the pyrolysis products, i.e. both the oil and the fibres, will be evaluated and a composite prototype from the recycled products will be developed. The monomers from pyrolysis liquid will be separated to synthesize new thermoset resins and the fibres will be reused in SMC materials.
Tommy Öman
Senior scientist at RISE in the unit Composite materials and production.
He holds a PhD in chemistry now working with projects focused both about recycling of composite materials and about developing new biocomposites materials.
Anodising sludge as secondary resource to mineral wool
Within the aluminium industry a common problem is the handling of anodising sludge, a residual material formed during the anodising process that mainly consists of aluminium hydroxide, Al(OH)3, and that currently is mainly deposited in landfills. In the recently ended project, AluKrets-II, funded by Metalliska Material, the scope was to investigate the possibilities to utilise this sludge as a secondary raw material in the briquettes used in the cupola furnaces during mineral wool production. A presentation of the project work, especially pilot scale briquetting tests and an analysis of sustainability and economic conditions for an industrial implementation will be given together with findings and conclusions regarding opportunities for future circularity.
Sara Rosendahl
PhD, researcher and project leader, Swerim AB
Works within the group Resource efficiency and Environment in project related to sustainability, utilization of residual material and circular economy within mining, steel and metal industry.
Novel biocatalytic routes for CO2 Capture Utilization and Storage (CCUS) based on the enzyme carbonic anhydrase
In order to tackle global warming, emissions need to be cut by 45% by 2030, compared to 2019 levels. To reach these ambitious goals, the concept of Carbon Capture and Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) is now openly discussed as one of the solutions to decrease net CO2 emissions, as well as a potential technology to move away from fossil carbon by using CO2 as an alternative feedstock for the production of renewable chemicals and fuels. This presentation focuses on the application of the enzyme carbonic anhydrase in post-combustion CO2 capture and underlines the environmental and process benefits over the current state of the art.
Io Antonopoulou
Associated senior lecturer in Biochemical Process Engineering at Luleå University of Technology.
Io earned her MEng in Chemical Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens and she obtained her PhD in Biochemical Process Engineering from Luleå University of Technology in 2018. Her research is focused on the use of enzymes for the conversion of plant biomass residues and CO2-rich industrial waste streams to high added-value products. Her work has been published in journals such as Scientific Reports, PLOS ONE, Journal of Cleaner Production and ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering.
Creating the Silicon Valley of Arctic Europe: the importance of a unified front in attracting international talent to the Green Revolution
It is essential that both companies and cities work together to achieve their shared goal of attracting talent from all over the world to fulfill the promise of the green industrial revolution taking place in northern Sweden and Arctic Europe. Without a unified message and coordinated campaigns, marketing, and internationalization efforts, we will never achieve the goal of attracting the right talent fast enough to make a global impact on emissions reductions.
Through our unique digital platform at MindDig, we work with both private companies and cities, including LKAB, Northvolt, Skellefteå, Boliden, H2 Green Steel, Luleå, and Boden to coordinate strategic initiatives aimed at bringing 100 000 new residents to northern Sweden in the coming years, including the adoption of MindDig Talent Recirculation – our version of talent “circularity” within the MindDig talent platform. This presentation focuses on the tangible actions we must take to bring the most talented individuals from all over the world to the Swedish Arctic so they can do their part to save the planet! As we say at MindDig: “We have 100 000 jobs. More money than we can spend and 8 years to save the planet. Are you in?”
Chana Svensson
Co-founder & CEO of MindDig
Markus Gustafsson
Co-founder & Chairman of the Board for MindDig
MindDig is a talent attraction and recruitment platform launched in northern Sweden, aimed at bringing the best and brightest minds to to the Swedish Arctic to help fulfill the talent shortage experienced by some of the largest employers in the region that are striving to decarbonize multiple industrial processes, from steel, to mining, to batteries.