2017 Heinzel-Mondi-Sappi Award goes to Dr. Marco Beaumont

The PhD work of Dr. Marco Beaumont, Department of Chemistry, Division of Chemistry of Renewable Resources, was awarded with the Heinzel-Mondi-Sappi Award 2017, which "recognizes outstanding scientific works having a potentially significant positive effect on the future of the pulp and paper industry".

His PhD thesis "Characterization and Modification of a Cellulose II Gel" focused on a novel nanomaterial from the cellulose II allomorph - a cellulose II gel obtained out of the Lyocell process, its in-depth physicochemical characterization and novel ways for chemical modification. Besides these specific studies, the work opened new general ways to chemically modify all types of celluloses in the never-dried state – this way avoiding hornification effects and reactivity losses – by very clean and straightforward reactions. In addition, a general procedure was elaborated to dry nanocellulosic materials without the notorious losses in reactivity, surface area and re-wettability so that the re-suspended material exhibits largely the same properties as the starting nanocellulose before drying. During these two years and 10 months of his PhD study, done within the framework of the DokIn’Holz Initiative and funded by Lenzing AG and the Austrian Ministry BMWFW, he published a total of 6 first-author papers, including five SCI articles with an accumulated impact factor of 27, and a Wiley book chapter. Dr. Beaumont´s work, performed at the UFT Tulln, Division of Chemistry of Renewable Resources, was supervised by Thomas Rosenau and by Antje Potthast and co-supervised by Martina Opietnik (Lenzing AG) who had graduated from the same institute several years ago.

The Heinzel-Mondi-Sappi Award 2017 was awarded on Wednesday, May 31th, by the president of Austropapier, Dr. Christian Skilich, during the annual Paper & Biorefinery Conference in Graz, Austria.