Lennart BergströmProfessor

Program responsible for the Master program in Sustainable Chemistry

Introduction to Sustainable Chemistry, KZ7012, 7.5 hp

Advanced Materials Chemistry, 15 hp (PhD course)

My research activities span the academic disciplines of materials engineering and applied surface and colloid science often in nanostructural form. The research has resulted in several inventions and both generated patents that have been sold to industry and also lead to the formation of two spin-out companies; NeoZeo AB in 2010 and Cellutech AB in 2013.

Materials for thermal insulation

Funding: Swedish Energy Agency, Wallenberg Wood Science Center

The energy needed to construct buildings and to maintain a pleasant interior environment accounts for more than 30% of the world´s total energy consumption and generates a significant part of the global greenhouse gas emissions. Decreasing heat transfer through better insulation is essential to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. We develop thermally insulating materials based on renewable or widely abundant raw materials with superinsulating properties and investigate fundamental aspects of heat transfer including phonon scattering and moisture-dependence.

Selected publications:

V Apostolopoulou-Kalkavoura, P Munier, L Bergström, "Thermally Insulating Nanocellulose-Based Materials", Advanced Materials, 2001839 (2020)doi.org/10.1002/adma.202001839

B Wicklein, A Kocjan, G Salazar-Alvarez, F Carosio, G Camino, M Antonietti, L Bergström, “Thermally insulating and fire-retardant lightweight anisotropic foams based on nanocellulose and graphene oxide”, Nature Nanotechnology, 10, 277-283 (2015)

V Apostolopoulou-Kalkavoura, S Hu, N Lavoine, M Garg, M Linares, P Munier, I Zozoulenko, J Shiomi, L Bergström, “Humidity-Dependent Thermal Boundary Conductance Controls Heat Transport of Super-Insulating Nanofibrillar Foam” Matter,  4, 1, 276-289 (2021) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matt.2020.11.007

B Wicklein, D Kocjan, F Carosio, G Camino, L Bergström, “Tuning the nanocellulose-borate interaction to achieve highly flame retardant materials” Chemistry of Materials, 28, 1985-1989 (2016)

Z-L Yu, N Ying, V Apostolopoulou-Kalkavoura, B Qin, Z-Y Ma, M-Y Xing, C Qiao, L Bergström, M Antonietti, S-H Yu, “Fire-retardant and thermally insulating phenolic-silica aerogels”, Angewandte Chemie, 57, 4538-4542 (2018)

 

Colloidal processing of bio-based nanomaterials

Funding: Wallenberg Wood Science Center (KAW), ERA-NET (Vinnova)

Colloidal processing of nanoparticles based on renewable and Earth-abundant resources and self-assembly of nanoparticles to form novel nanostructured materials with useful properties are at the core of our activities where the fundamental activities aim to generate a better understanding of the molecular or mesoscopic assembly mechanisms. Biomimetic synthesis which involves the integration and assembly of inorganic materials with polymers and biomolecules is another closely related field of interest.

Selected publications:

J P. F. Lagerwall, C Schütz, M Salajkova, J Noh, J H Park, G Scalia, and L Bergström, “Cellulose nanocrystal-based materials: from liquid crystal self-assembly and glass formation to multifunctional thin films”, NPG Asia Materials, 6, e80 (2014)

Y Liu, S-H Yu, L Bergström, “Transparent and flexible nacre-like hybrid films of aminoclays and carboxylated cellulose nanofibrils”, Advanced Functional Materials 28, 1703277 (2017)

N Lavoine, L Bergström, “Nanocellulose-based foams and aerogels: processing, properties and applications”, J. Mater. Chem. A, 5, 16105-117 (2017)

H P. Voisin, K Gordeyeva, G Siqueira, M K. Hausmann, A R. Studart, L Bergström, “3D printing of strong lightweight cellular structures using polysaccharide-based composite foams”, ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering 6, 17160-17167 (2018)

K Kriechbaum, V Apostolopoulou-Kalkavoura, P Munier, L Bergström, “Sclerotozation-inspired aminoquinone cross-linking of thermally insulating and moisture-resilient biobased foams”, ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, 8, 47, 17408-17416 (2020)

K Kriechbaum, L Bergström, “Antioxidant and UV-blocking leather-inspired nanocellulose-based films with high wet strength”, Biomacromolecules, 21, 5, 1720–1728 (2020)doi.org/10.1021/acs.biomac.9b01655

 

Nanoparticle self-assembly

Funding: Swedish Research Council (VR)

This project aims to generate a deeper understanding of the formation of complex and multicomponent nanostructured materials by tunable assembly of  bio-based and inorganic nanoparticles. We study in real time how nanoparticles assemble to form mesocrystals with complex structures and multicomponent compositions using e.g. time-resolved QCM-D and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) in levitating drops and customized measurement cells.

 

Selected publications:

Z-P Lv, M Kapuscinski, L Bergström, “Tunable assembly of truncated nanocubes by evaporation-driven poor-solvent enrichment”, Nature Communications, 10, 4228 (2019)

M Kapuscinski, M Agthe, Z-P Lv, M Segad, L Bergström, “Temporal Evolution of Superlattice Contraction and Defect-Induced Strain Anisotropy in Mesocrystals during Nanocube Self-Assembly”, ACS Nano, 14, 5, 5337–5347 (2020)

M Kapuscinski, P Munier, M Segad, L Bergström, “Two-Stage Assembly of Mesocrystal  Fibres with Tunable Diamaters in Weak Magnetic Fields”,  Nano Letters, 20, 10, 7359–7366 (2020)doi/abs/10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c02770

Y Liu, C Schütz, G Salazar-Alvarez, L Bergström, “Assembly, Gelation and Helicoidal consolidation of nanocellulose dispersions”, Langmuir, 35, 3600-3606 (2019)

M Agthe, T S. Plivelic, A Labrador, L Bergström, G Salazar-Alvarez, “Following in real-time the two-step assembly of nanoparticles into mesocrystals in levitating drops”, Nano Letters, 16, 6838-6843 (2016)

 

Research group members

Alexander Holm (Researcher)

Elisabetta Nocerino (postdoc)

Ehsan Hadi (PhD student)

Carina Schiele (PhD student)

Agnes Åhl (PhD student)

Elias Möller (MSc student)

 

Alumni

Former PhD students:

H. Guldberg-Pedersen, 1998; Vice president, Haldor Topsoe A/S, Denmark

Peter H.F. Hansen, 2000; Senior Researcher, RISE, Sweden

Eric Laarz, 2000; Germany

Anders Meurk, 2000; Quality specialist and team leader quality engineering, Scania Group, Sweden

Karin M. Andersson, 2004; R&D Manager performance testing, Sandvik Coromant AB, Sweden

Pär Wedin, 2004; Staff Researcher, Nynäs AB, Sweden

Petr  Vasiliev, 2009; CEO, Neonest AB, Sweden

Jovice B-S. Ng, 2009; Research Director Saab-Singapore Pte Ltd, Singapore

Linnéa Andersson, 2011: Materials and reliability engineer at HP Inc., Corvallis, OR, USA

Christian Mille, 2013; Project Manager, ABB, Sweden

Bertrand Faure, 2013; Project Manager, XENOCS, Grenoble, France

Erik Wetterskog 2013; Pedagogic developer in technology and physics, Vetenskapens Hus, Sweden

Neda Keshavarzi, 2014: Dubai

Arto Ojuva, 2015: Head of Laboratory, ColloidTech Oy, Tampere, Finland

Christina Schütz, 2015; Project Manager, ChemStream, Antwerp, Belgium

Arnaud Mayence 2016; Principal Scientist, Catalent Pharma Solutions, Belgium

Michael Agthe 2016; Researcher, University of Hamburg, Germany

Yingxin Liu 2018; Scientist, SABIC, Netherlands

Korneliya Gordeyeva 2018; Postdoc, KTH, Sweden

Martin Kapuscinski 2020; Postdoc, Uppsala University, Sweden

Konstantin Kriechbaum 2020; Development engineer sustainable materials, Tetrapak AB, Sweden

Pierre Munier 2021; Process Engineer, RenFuel AB, Sweden

Varvara Apostolopoulou-Kalkavoura 2021; Postdoc, Stockholm University

 

Former post-docs, researchers and visiting scientists:

Farid Akhtar (2009-2014), Prof., Materials Technology, Luleå University of technology, Sweden

German Salazar-Alvarez (2009-2010), Assoc. Prof. Uppsala University, Sweden

Jens Weber (2008-2009), Prof., Hochschule Zittau/Görlitz, Germany

Nathalie Lavoine (2016-2018), Assistant Prof., North Carolina State University, USA

Motoyuki Iijima (2011), Assoc. Prof., Yokohama National University, Japan

Takamasa Mori (2011), Prof., Hosei University, Japan

Jing Sun (2000-2001), Prof., Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Shanghai, China.

Satoshi Tanaka (2007-2008), Assoc. Prof., Nagaoka University of Technology, Nagaoka, Japan.

Nozomu Uchida (1996-1997), Assoc. Prof., Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan.

Dong Wang (2011-2012), Assoc. Prof., Northeast Electrical Power University, Jilin, China.

Aygul Yeprem (2019-2020), Prof., Yildiz Technical University, Turkey

Anwar Ahniyaz (2005-2007), Senior Scientist, RISE, Sweden.

Nelson Bell (1998), Staff scientist, Sandia National Labs, Albuquerque, USA.

Marta Estrader Bofarull (2011-2012), Researcher. University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Tamara Church (2019-2021), Scientist, Cambrex Karlskoga AB, Sweden

Andreas Fall (2014-2015), Senior Research Associate, RISE Bioeconomy, Stockholm, Sweden

Richard Greenwood (1995-1996), Industrial Tutor, Birmingham University; Birmingham, UK.

Robert Hodgkins (2005-2007), Science Specialist, Aramco, Saudi Arabia

Yuji Hotta (2001-2002), Research Scientist, Ceramic Research Institute, AIST, Japan.

Mukta Limaye (2011-2012), INSPIRE Faculty, IIS Bhopal, India

Ranjith Krishna Pai (2007-2009), Principal Scientific Officer, Ministry of Science & Technology, India.

Peter Lipowski (2007), Project leader, Siemens, Munchen, Germany

Zhong-Peng Lyu (2017-2019), Postdoc, Aalto University, Finland

Julien Navarro (2013-2015), Researcher, University of Hamburg, Germany

Vitaliy Olinyk (2009-2010), Technical specialist, JPK Instruments, Berlin, Germany

Dilshod Shakarova (2013-2014), Researcher, Tashkent State Technical University, Uzbekistan

Daniela Stoeckel (2015-2016), Germany

Brian Sundlof (1997-1998), Manager Semiconductor Packaging Develop., IBM Systems Group, USA.

Subhasis Rana (2007-2008), Fellow scientist, Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute, India

Kimiyasu Sato (2008-2009), Senior Research Scientist, Structural Materials Research Institute, Japan

Mo Segad (2018-2019), IT consultant, Sweden

Hugo Voisin (2016-2018), Postdoc, France

Bernd Wicklein (2012-2014), Researcher, ICMM-CSIC, Madrid, Spain

Joseph Yanez (1997-1999), Senior manager operations, Accenture, Chicago, USA.

Boris Zhmud (1998-2000), CTO Applied Nano Surfaces AB, Sweden.