FOAMWOOD: Foams Mimicking Wood

Foamwood project develops a novel method for manufacturing bio-based foams for the purpose of making laminated structures with extraordinary mechanical properties. The project combines the novel materials and development expertize on bio-based materials knowhow and foam physics of both VTT and Aalto. Specifically, the project aims to utilize modeling-based ideas in setting up the process and the materials rheology to speed-up the process development.

Main results

• We have succeeded in manipulating the foam structure by deforming the bubbles and making them anisotropic in the wet state

• We have prepared a rheological characterization protocol to characterize material properties that are meaningful for the process

• We have found new recipes with improved foam rheology for our novel process leading to high air content and good bubble elongation

Publications (see also links below the news item)

• Viitanen, L., Miranda-Valdez, I.Y., Koivisto, J., Puisto, A., and Alava, M. Thermal gelation of cellulose based suspensions. Cellulose, 30, 4215–4223 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-023-05150-7

• Koochi, H., Mac Intyre, J., Viitanen, L., Puisto, A., Maleki-Jirsaraei, N., and Alava, M. Local time-dependent microstructure of aging TEMPO nanofibrillated cellulose gel. Cellulose, 30, 61–74 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-022-04900-3

• Miranda-Valdez, I.Y., Viitanen, L., Mac Intyre, J.R., Puisto, A., Koivisto, J., and Alava M. Predicting effect of fibers on thermal gelation of methylcellulose using Bayesian optimization, Carbohydrate Polymers, 298, 119921 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbpol.2022.119921.

• Reichler, M., Rabensteiner, S., Törnblom, L., Coffeng, S., Viitanen, L., Jannuzzi, L., Mäkinen, T., Mac Intyre, J.R., Koivisto, J., Puisto, A., Alava, M. Scalable method for bio-based solid foams that mimic wood. Scientific Reports, 11, 24306 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-03764-0

• Viitanen, L., Rheological properties of structured complex fluids, Aalto University publication series DOCTORAL THESES, 100/2022. https://aaltodoc.aalto.fi/handle/123456789/116113

Research Project Managers

Mikko Alava, Aalto

Juha Koivisto, Aalto

Jukka Ketoja, VTT

uMisGestranius

Project status

Funded by FinnCERES from January 2020 until December 2022.

Linked to foam research, a different kind of foam manufacturing technology has received Research to Business funding from Business Finland aiming to commercialization of the technology. Woamy, an Aalto University spin-out, aims to bring to the market a bio-based foam material to replace harmful plastic foams (read more).

In addition, related work has been supported by host organizations as well as e.g. Finnish Foundation for Technology Promotion.