Smart Chemistry Park in Raisio – a unique ecosystem of businesses

Smart Chemistry Park in Raisio is a regionally significant ecosystem of businesses in the field of bio- and circular economy. Representatives from Business Finland paid a visit to this entity which is unique on a national and even on international level.

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Co-founder of CH-Bioforce Nicholas Lax (right) showed Kati Oikarinen (middle), Sauli Miettinen (left) and Miro Aaltonen (second from left) from Business Finland one of the end-products of fractionation. With them Reeta Huhtinen from Turku Science Park (second from right).

Turku Science Park Ltd. started Smart Chemistry Park in 2015. Turku Science Park identified a need for closer co-operation within the field and creation of the park was an answer to that need. Smart Chemistry Park is located inside the industrial site of Raisio Ltd and it brings together companies which all work closely with chemistry. There are 11 companies located in the park and their end-products vary from health and battery recycling technology to fractionation of biomass. You can learn more about the companies here. In the wider Smart Chemistry Park network there are approximately 60 companies and close co-operation with universities is also conducted.

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Kati Oikarinen from Business Finland and Nicholas Lax from CH-Bioforce.

As part of their visit to Smart Chemistry Park Kati Oikarinen, Sauli Miettinen and Miro Aaltonen from Business Finland learned what companies such as Chementors, Green Industry Park, Durat and CH-Bioforce do. A visit to CH-Bioforce’s pilot factory was also in the programme and it was hosted by two of the company’s co-founders and Åbo Akademi alumni Lari Vähäsalo and Nicholas Lax. CH-Bioforce has developed a fractionation technology that can be applied to nearly every type of biomass, including non-wood biomass. Two well known examples of non-wood biomass are reed and straw. The end-products of the fractionation are hemicellulose, cellulose, and lignin, which are raw materials to cosmetics, textile and food industry.

Interested to learn more about Smart Chemistry Park and its possibilities? Contact Reeta Huhtinen or Hanna Haaksi.

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LigninResurf-consortia’s research group was getting acquainted with the pilot factory at the same time. LigninResurf project is part of R&D collaboration and an ecosystem launched by Fortum and Metsä Group, partly founded by Business Finland.