What can you make from the world’s strongest thread?

In October, Karl Håkansson of RISE won the Blue Sky Young Researchers Innovation Award for his method of spinning nanocellulose into the world’s strongest biomaterial – stronger than spider silk. This year’s TechMark Arena gives you the opportunity to work with this material. What do you want to develop using the world’s strongest thread?

TechMark Arena is a transdisciplinary academy that brings together master’s students from various backgrounds in order to work on a common theme. This arrangement encourages a broader approach to a topic and ensures a greater exchange of ideas between students and increased knowledge sharing between different projects. The name TechMark Arena comes from the idea of combining research-oriented technology projects with innovation-oriented projects closer to the market. RISE is exploring this format as a way to bridge the technology-to-market gap.

“TechMark Arena brings together students from totally different backgrounds and allows them to benefit from each other’s strengths. Having a common theme but with different perspectives is not only good for innovation, it also creates a community that lasts. We who participated in the TechMark Arena 2017 still have contact and much pleasure from our friendship,” says Maria Sundin, today a project engineer within packaging development at RISE.

The theme of 2019 is Biobased Filaments in a Digital Future. Nine thesis proposals are published and described in more detail below. The results of the projects will be presentedin June. As for previous years, we expect the TechMark Arena will produce story-telling demonstrators to complete each project report.

“Students in the TechMark Arena will research and innovate with biobased materials, the creation of interactive materials that can for example conduct electricity, and applications related to 3D-printing. I am looking forward to seeing what new possibilities emerge for the industry and for society,” says Tatjana Karpenja who has been planning the programme together with Maria.

Projects 2019:

SmartFabrics – how to digitalize the last blind spot with the aid of piezo-electrical active filaments. This project aims to use Big Data and digitalization to improve the production process of pulp and paper.

Active Packaging – new applications of functional filaments in packaging is searching for new creative packaging applications.

3D-Printing of Lignin-Based Composites will be investigating how lignin, the second most abundant natural polymer in world, can be mixed with the biopolymer PLA to create a 3D-printing friendly material.

Carbonising of lignin-nanocellulose filaments aims to produce a carbon fibre of high molecular order and yet with a high carbon content, thereby providing a novel competitive carbon fibre.

Process development for production of biobased multilayer filament is a project with the goal of developing the nanocellulose spinning process such that filaments with different layers can be manufactured directly in the spinning process itself.

Techno-economic evaluation of nanocellulose spinning from a process and product perspective will investigate the commercialization of spun nanocellulose. Costs for the production, possible applications and a comparison with the conventional spinning process will be included.

Paper filament for additive manufacturing has the goal of developing a print head which is suitable for printing thermoplastics reinforced with paper yarn.

Textiles from biobased filaments with interactive properties aims to design interactive textiles based on new spinning processes developed at RISE.

3D printing interoperability software is about establishing a sustainable industrial design and manufacturing 3D-system based on Swedish technology and raw materials.

Read more about the projects and send your application at www.ri.se/sv/jobba-hos-oss/lediga-jobb

TechMark Arena 2019 is organised with funding from the Gunnar Sundblads Forskningsfond research fund.

Source

RISE, press release, 2018-11-20.

Supplier

Gunnar Sundblads Forskningsfond
Research Institutes of Sweden (RISE)

Share