(Foto: BEST, Andrea Sonnleitner)

"To me, the research stay at the National Institute of Chemistry, NIC, in Ljubljana means a lot as it gives me the opportunity to broaden my knowledge in biochar analysis, while generating valuable data for my PhD thesis. At the same time, I get to experience a city that I’ve never been to, which certainly helps my personal development. At NIC, we will jointly analyze the properties of biochar derived from pyrolysis under varying process conditions (temperature, residence time, …) of diverse feedstocks (walnut shells, wheat bran, wood chips, …) by performing BET-surface determination and SEM experiments. The results shall be published in a high-quality journal like the “Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis”. Additionally, I will assist in a planned publication of NIC, focusing on pyrolysis kinetics of hemp residues. Besides of the Marie Sklodowska Curie staff-exchange project BioTrainValue, our cooperation is funded within my personal PhD thesis project by the Austrian FFG as well as in the Alpine Space Interreg project Alps4GreenC, with special thanks to co-funding by the Province of Lower Austria. All in all, it’s a great opportunity for me and all parties involved to exchange knowledge and I’m grateful for this possibility."

Hosting Institute: National Institute of Chemistry, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Supervisor: Jure Voglar
Time Period: October - December 2023