Åsa Ek

The forest sector likes to talk about the importance of substitution. It should be possible to use wood as a raw material to replace fossil-based materials to a greater extent. But is it possible to use wood for just about anything? Åsa Ek is Vice President Biofoams at Stora Enso, which develops and produces solutions based on wood and biomass for a range of industries and applications worldwide. Ek works in the Biomaterials Innovation business area, which conducts research and development into the products of tomorrow. She envisages many different uses for versatile wood. The reason is quite simple: “Everything that’s made from oil can be made from wood,” she says. …But making today’s widely used plastics from wood is difficult and uneconomical. …Research into wood-based plastics therefore focuses on molecules that can be more easily obtained from wood raw materials, and which in turn can make plastics with better properties.