4th Main Project Meeting in Brunswick, Germany, September 30th – October 1st, 2024
The 4th main project meeting of the Wood for Health project consortium was held in Brunswick, Germany. Delegations of Finland, Norway and Latvia were present, while Swedish partner White Arkitekter joined via MS Teams. The meeting was split in two days, each at one of the two German partners located in the city: The company AURO Pflanzenchemie AG and the Fraunhofer Institute for Wood Research, Wilhelm-Klauditz-Institut (WKI).
The first day of the colourful meeting was on
the premises of local natural paint producer AURO, who also won the 17th
German Sustainability Award for 2025 in the category of paints (as of Nov 2024).
Besides the review of the last few months and how to proceed with the project,
the attendees got a behind-the-scenes look at how natural paint is made and
what challenges the production of natural paints entails. Since AURO is also
producing their very own binder system Replebin®, a big picture of the overall
process from raw material to finished bucket was conveyed.
The
meeting attendees in front of AURO factory and head quarter
The second day of the meeting was held at the main faculties of the renowned Fraunhofer WKI in the north of Brunswick. The institute specializes in process engineering, molding and component production with biomaterials, bio-based binders and coatings, functionalization, fire protection, material and product testing, recycling processes and the utilization of renewable raw materials in buildings and vehicles. Virtually all the processes and products resulting from the institute’s research activities are used in industry. In addition to fruitful discussions, the attendees also had a quick tour in the premises of its department Binders and Coatings (BICO). Here they were introduced to the laboratories for binder synthesis and analysis, coating application, artificial weathering and product testing.
The meeting agenda contained updates of each work packages focusing on presenting results that are already finalized and then listing tasks that are still pending and whether contributions from partners are needed for completing them. The updates were given by WP leaders. In addition, Prof. Aki Manninen from the University of Oulu joined the meeting by MsTeams and presented work done with antiviral testing in WP4 and time schedule for the last experiments. The plan for completion of guide booklet in WP2 will be finalized in separate discussions remotely between White Arkitekter and some individual partners. Work in WP5 is already very close to be successfully completed. The morning of the second day generated the most significant outcome of the meeting: The partners decided together which will be the final experiments for testing of coatings in WP2 and the initial plan and “storyline” for the main scientific publication of the project was outlined.
