Clean Technologies

The goal of the project is to find out the suitability of side streams from the Lahti area other than compost and wood ash as raw material for “Putretti”. Fractions that contain fast-dissolving nitrogen that can be used by plants are especially needed. In addition, we are also developing completely new circular economy products in the project. 

Researcher Hanna Vanhanen. See more about the project here: https://putretti.blogspot.com/

Project funding from the Päijät-Häme Union and it is part of the Finnish structural fund program of the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund "Sustainable growth and work 2014–2020".

Development of new AaltoCell™ -based fiber applications with Andrtiz Ltd.

Reseacher Annina Lähdeniemi

This project invested in pioneering together with the region's leading companies, Lahti Energia and Labio, by creating a value chain of SMEs and research organizations. The value chain included processes from the development work of organic recycling fertilizer to commercialization of the product. The project will increase the region's know-how, especially of processes in the field of circular economy. At the moment strong knowledge of this field does not exist in the Päijät-Häme region. Aalto University, lead by professor Dahl, will bring this knowledge for the project. Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) has been researching a lot of ash fertilization of the forests, and the metals possibly dissolving from the fertilization. The role of Lahti Region Development (LADEC) is to strongly involve region's SMEs already at the beginning of the project and to start the preliminary conversations of the investments of the fertilizer plant. This project will increase the value added of compost and ash, and also enhance the circular economy of the Kujala waste center. Ammonia will be recovered from the process. Lahti Energia is able to utilize the recovered ammonia in its own process.

Researcher: Antti Pietiläinen

Focused on the isolation of process waters completely from the adjacent water systems. This will require development of new methods for optimising and controlling water qualities at each process step. As a bonus, this will also facilitate the recovery of additional valuable constituents.

This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 730480.

Researchers: Nóra Schreithofer, Ngoni Mhonde, LE Thi, Tapio Friberg, Hannu Sippola, Anne Penttilä
 

New sustainable products from AaltoCell™ 

Researcher Eetu Satosalmi

Aims to improve the mining industry’s water balance management capabilities by providing a new dynamic, predictive water balance solution to the market. This solution helps the mining industry monitor an entire mine site’s water balance in real-time. It provides them with a possibility to create short-term forecasts for a site’s water volumes and water quality in different production and environmental conditions.

The project is financed by EITRawMaterials. 

Researchers: Nóra Schreithofer, Tapio Friberg

The “Bridging North to South” project is performed in collaboration with the Centre for Minerals Research (CMR) at the University of Cape Town. Our project aims to outline research protocols for evaluation and implementation of closed water circuits in mineral concentrators, to achieve zero emission plants.

The project is financed by the Academy of Finland. 

Researchers: Nóra Schreithofer, Ngoni Mhonde, LE Thi, Tapio Friberg