Researcher of the month is Kirsi Leppänen

Kirsi Leppänen is currently working at Prof. Ritva Serimaa's research group at University of Helsinki. She is a researcher in re-engineering paper (REP) project, which belongs to the research program EffTech (Intelligent, resource efficient production technologies) of the Forestcluster Ltd. In 2007, Kirsi graduated from University of Helsinki. Her main subject was physics and the topic of her master thesis was the structural and magnetic properties of cobalt nano particles. Now, she is a researcher at University of Helsinki. She is also a student at National Graduate School in Materials Physics (NGSMP).

 

Re-engineering paper project focus is on development of new resource efficient nano material based paper production technologies. Renewal of the papermaking paradigm involves many elements starting from evolved raw material base, mapping the novel structure space through realistic modeling and simulation of nanoscale elements and designing the correspondent novel unit operations and processes.

 

The goal of Kirsi’s research is to measure nano cellulose 3D structure. Currently research is focused on X-ray scattering, X-ray tomography and electron microscopy. The idea is to give results to modelling team and double-check simulation results.

 

Kirsi concentrates on characterizing the nano cellulose. Her research focus is on structure of paper and gel samples which are made of nano cellulose.  The structure and properties of nano cellulose are different than those of pulp fibres. This gives a lot of different options to final use of nano cellulose. For example, nano cellulose can replace plastic and be used to print electronics to paper.

 

The best thing in working with other research partners is the ability to get excellent and wider research insight into her research work. The benefits for Kirsi to work in this kind of EffTech program is networking and co-operation between research groups.

 

When not working, Kirsi spends time, for example, jogging, playing floor ball and reading books.