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SUITD delegation presented the developments of the university at the International Biofuel Congress
17 March

Saint-Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design delegation took part in the Biofuel Congress — the largest event of the industry in Russia and received an international status. The congress was organized by the Restec Exhibition Association together with the Russian Association of pulp and paper industry organizations and enterprises (RAO Bumprom). Traditionally, SUITD experts were invited as speakers. Scientists from the Higher School of Technology and Energy of SUITD — professor Eduard Akim and associate professor Alexander Pekarets — spoke about promising research areas of biofuels and wood biorefining (a breakthrough technology for wood to produce new products in demand).

During the Congress, representatives of business, scientific community, government and trade unions discussed the state of the domestic market of lumber and biofuels, problems of bioenergy development in small communities in Russia, the possibility of energy saving in industries by recycling waste as well as the opening of new promising markets abroad.

The Head of the University strategic project «Development of biodegradable packaging production at the enterprises of pulp and paper industry, the transition from plastic to 2030», professor Eduard Akim delivered a report on the problems of biofuel production and consumption in Russia in the transition to technological independence, in which he gave an overview of the current state of the market of pellets and briquettes. Alexander Pekarets, Associate Professor at the Technology Department of SUITD, general director of LLC «Forest Technological Company» shared the experience in processing wood waste into charcoal briquettes at his own enterprise using an innovative technology and spoke about the prospects of the use of the resulting products.

 Vigorous discussions were caused by another topical report of Olesya Fedorova, vice-rector for DistanceEducation of the SUITD and Anna Nikolaevna, Deputy Director of the Higher School of Technology and Power Engineering of SUITD on the development of educational activities about the staffing of biofuel production and its use in Russia. At the present time the biofuel industry needs the specialists in pellet and charcoal briquette production, and our university in its turn is ready to start training students in this field, — Eduard Akim commented.

In addition, at the Congress were presented the results of the University work on the program of the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia «Priority 2030», in which the scientists of St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design are developing biofuels from wood waste. As a reminder, the scientific team of SUITD proposed a solution to the problem of recycling wood waste from forest enterprises by producing solid biofuel in the form of briquettes. This business model will allow companies to create new knowledge-intensive products and use them both for their own production and for sale on the energy market. The equipment was tested at a woodworking plant in the village of Kachug in the Irkutsk region. As a result of the successful tests, the plant management started transporting biofuel, including abroad. Now scientists are working to promote the project of introducing the technology to other woodworking enterprises in order to switch the forest sector to carbon neutrality and reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere.