SEK 52 million to materials labs at Luleå University of Technology for green transition

Luleå University of Technology, together with six other Swedish universities, participates in the Wallenberg initiative WISE – the largest investment ever in Materials Science in Sweden. Nearly SEK 3 billion will be invested in research at these universities during the next ten years, and will play a very important role for basic research as well as for the Swedish manufacturing industry. The decision is now taken to invest a total of SEK 500 million in strong research infrastructures at, among others, Luleå University of Technology where two high-tech labs within the field of Materials Science will be upgraded.

“We value immensely this investment of SEK 52 million from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation to two of our materials research labs. It enables us to be at the forefront of a very important field and to conduct advanced research on materials in close collaboration with the green transition industry,” says Birgitta Bergvall-Kåreborn, Vice-Chancellor at Luleå University of Technology.

A sustainable society

The vision of WISE – Wallenberg Initiative Materials Science for Sustainability – is a sustainable society, through the promotion of Swedish research on technical qualities of different materials. The initiative is a collaboration between the leading universities in Sweden within the field of materials science: Luleå University of Technology, Chalmers University of Technology, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Linköping University, Uppsala University, Stockholm University and Lund University. Together with industry and society, the initiative supports and accelerates the transition towards a sustainable society. Moreover, it will advance the scientific frontier of materials science, establishing Sweden as a leading nation within the field.

Research on materials at Luleå University of Technology is conducted within the fields of, for example, sustainable mining and metallurgy, circular use of raw materials, bio-composites and fossil-free energy production. In the materials research labs, the researchers work together with LKAB, SSAB, Boliden, Talga, Vattenfall, H2 Green Steel and Northvolt, among others.

“We are delighted about this opportunity to improve our labs. The new instruments raise our already outstanding research on materials to a new level. Now we can improve existing materials and identify new ones with high performance and reduced climate impact throughout the entire production and utilisation process,” says Marta-Lena Antti, Professor of Engineering Materials and scientific leader of WISE at Luleå University of Technology.

The grant of SEK 52 million to Luleå University of Technology will specifically be used for funding equipment for focused ion-beam scanning electron microscopy, (FIB-SEM) and a new instrument for X-ray computed tomography (XCT) within the research infrastructure Luleå Material Imaging and Analysis (LUMIA). The grant will also fund three new instruments for analyses of friction and wear of materials in extreme environments, and synchrotron measurements at MAX IV laboratory in Lund in the south of Sweden.

Researchers in the relevant labs at Luleå University of Technology are very happy about the initiative:

“We will have unique equipment enabling new findings of revolutionary materials to be used for, among other things, carbon dioxide and hydrogen gas storage, fossil-free steel, and battery production. In addition, we can conduct research on critical raw materials for renewable energy, for example, rare earth elements,” says Glenn Bark, researcher in ore geology and director of LUMIA. He and Fredrik Forsberg, researcher in experimental mechanics, are responsible for two of the new instruments.

“With the new and very advanced microscope, we will be able to improve materials and production processes, for example, to determine why wear damage on press tools and machine components arises. The new equipment will also enable us to understand and prevent damage caused by what is known as leakage currents in electric motor bearings, a prerequisite for the transition to electric vehicles,”, says Roland Larsson, Professor of Machine Elements at Luleå University of Technology. He and Jens Hardell, Professor of Machine Elements, are responsible for the platform WiseEST in collaboration with Uppsala University.

The budget of WISE Wallenberg Initiative Materials Science for Sustainability, funded by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, amounts to close to SEK 3 billion during the years 2022-2033.

In the photo: Leading persons within WISE at Luleå University of Technology. Front row from the left: Fredrik Forsberg, researcher in experimental mechanics, and Jens Hardell, Professor of Machine Elements. Back row from the left: Roland Larsson, Professor of Machine Elements, Marta-Lena Antti, Professor of Engineering Materials and scientific leader of WISE at Luleå University of Technology, Ekaterina Osipova, research coordinator and Glenn Bark, researcher in ore geology.

• Read more about WISE and Luleå University of Technology
• Wallenberg Initiative Materials Science for Sustainability External link.