Publications
NIBIOs employees contribute to several hundred scientific articles and research reports every year. You can browse or search in our collection which contains references and links to these publications as well as other research and dissemination activities. The collection is continously updated with new and historical material.
2026
Authors
Petri Widsten Marc Borrega Miriam Kellock Mariem Zouari Anita Wronka Grzegorz Kowaluk Matthew Schwarzkopf Andreas TreuAbstract
Abstract Indoor air quality can be improved by coatings that adsorb harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In the present work, bio-based and VOC-adsorbing wood coatings were fabricated from polyphenols extracted from spruce bark, biochar produced from mixtures of spruce and pine bark, and a polyamine crosslinker. The bark-based biochar was doped with a catalyst (MnO 2 ) to enable continuous elimination of the adsorbed VOCs so that the coatings would not become saturated. The coatings formed a homogenous and smooth layer that covered the whole surface of the wood and showed excellent adhesion to the substrate, while their VOC removal efficiency was dependent on the pollutant type and the coating weight. The best performance was achieved toward formaldehyde, followed by chloroform and methyl ethyl ketone. Thick coatings (200–220 g/m 2 ) reached a formaldehyde removal of 62%, with the coating base and the biochar contributing nearly equally to the VOC removal. Overall, the bark-based coatings showed good potential for improving indoor air quality, but the surface wettability of the coated spruce wood was high. Despite the presence of biochar and nitrogen-containing aromatic compounds, the coatings did not appear to improve the reaction to fire of the wood.
Authors
Cornelya KlutschAbstract
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Lampros LamprinakisAbstract
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Authors
Habtamu AlemAbstract
The lecture provides practical guidance on research proposal development and international funding opportunities, with a particular focus on Horizon Europe. It covers how to identify suitable funding calls, understand call requirements and eligibility, develop competitive research ideas, formulate clear and measurable objectives, and design a sound research methodology. It also explains the main components of a Horizon Europe proposal, including Part A and Part B, and provides step-by-step guidance on writing the Excellence, Impact, and Implementation sections. The lecture further addresses international partnership and consortium building, work packages, deliverables, milestones, risks, staff effort, budget allocation, dissemination, exploitation, communication, and proposal evaluation criteria. Real and illustrative project examples, including collaborations between Norwegian and African universities, are used to connect proposal-writing principles with practical research funding experience.
Authors
Habtamu AlemAbstract
Decarbonising electricity does not necessarily translate into lower economy-wide fossil-energy use because coal, oil and natural gas can remain embedded in transport, heating and industry. This study assesses how low-carbon electricity portfolios are associated with economy-wide fossil-fuel dependence across 26 European Union member states during 1990–2024. The main outcome is the fossil share of total primary energy, complemented by robustness outcomes for fossil primary energy per capita and absolute fossil primary energy to distinguish changes in the fossil share from changes in fossil-energy quantities. Two-way fixed effects, Driscoll–Kraay inference and pooled common-correlated-effects estimation are combined with temporal-ordering, sub-period, multicollinearity, sample-restriction and country-heterogeneity diagnostics. Non-bioenergy renewable and nuclear electricity show the most consistent negative associations with fossil dependence. A ten-percentage-point increase in non-bioenergy renewable electricity is associated with approximately 2.9–3.2 percentage points lower fossil dependence; the corresponding nuclear association is approximately 3.5–3.9 points. The negative associations also persist for fossil energy per capita and absolute fossil energy, reducing concern that the headline result is driven solely by the denominator of the primary-energy share. Bioenergy evidence remains inference- and period-sensitive. The renewable lead is positive, but its statistical significance varies with the covariance estimator, reinforcing rather than resolving the endogeneity boundary. The results therefore support comparative system assessment of lower fossil reliance, electrification, flexibility and resilient low-carbon capacity, but not causal technology claims. © 2026 The Author(s).
Abstract
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Abstract
Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) are key long-chain omega-3 fatty acids in fish nutrition, but their differential effects on Atlantic salmon under unpredictable chronic stress (UCS) remain unclear. This study compared hepatic responses to DHA- and EPA-rich diets under unstressed and UCS conditions. Atlantic salmon post-smolts were fed a low-EPA+DHA, DHA-rich, or EPA-rich diet for 10 weeks, followed by 3 weeks of UCS. Liver transcriptomes were analyzed by RNA sequencing, and selected genes were validated by quantitative reverse transcription PCR. Growth did not differ among dietary groups. Under unstressed conditions, the DHA-rich diet induced more differentially expressed genes than the EPA-rich diet (67 vs. 29) and affected pathways related to fatty acid metabolism, autophagy, cholesterol homeostasis, and antioxidant defense. After UCS, the EPA-rich diet induced a broader hepatic transcriptional response than the DHA-rich diet (205 vs. 57 differentially expressed genes), with only 12 genes shared between the two comparisons. Both diets affected fatty acid- and steroid-biosynthesis-related pathways, while gene-level responses were diet-specific. These findings reveal distinct, stress-dependent hepatic responses to dietary DHA and EPA and may inform future optimization of their nutritional provision in Atlantic salmon production.