Åsa Östlund, PhD in Chemistry at Chalmers University of Technology, postdoc at Applied Surface Chemistry (Chalmers) and at SP Technical Research Institutes of Sweden.

Åsa Östlund has her PhD from Applied Surface Chemistry at Chalmers University of Technology in close collaboration with the pulp producer, Södra Cell, through the research cluster Avancell. During her PhD she studied polysaccharides from wood and plants, mainly with Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) techniques. With NMR she followed the dissolution mechanism for cellulose in certain solvents by studying the molecular interactions between the solvent and the cellulose, but also investigations of the drying effect on bleached pulp regarding the change in porosity were performed.

Within her postdoc projects the focus is on applying NMR to correlate macroscopic properties of cellulose to the structure and dynamics at a multitude of length-scales, especially with respect to water-cellulose interactions. With NMR techniques investigations of the interaction between water and cellulose during the steps involved when refining/modifying cellulose from wood, will be performed. The main focus of this project is the solid state of the fibers, regarding crystallinity, porosity and water sorption in pulp.

A major part of her postdoc is financed by Södra Skogsägarnas forskningsstiftelse.

List of Publications

Curriculum Vitae