More, faster, higher quality: potential of short-rotation aspen and willow biomass for novel products in bioeconomy

The general aim is to study how the genetic diversity in key biomass quality traits of hybrid aspen and willow can be best utilised to obtain superior raw-materials for novel products and functional applications.

The following questions will be addressed:
Q1. What are the key structural and chemical traits of aspen and willow woody biomass in producing design biochar, novel biocomposites, and bioactive applications based on bark-extracts?
Q2. What is the magnitude of genetic diversity for these traits?
Q3. How do growing conditions quantitatively alter the key traits?
Q4. How do the raw-material characteristics affect the properties and functionalities of novel end-products?