Jukka KANTOLA, the director of a Finish bio-industry company, KaiCell Fibers Ltd., was invited to visit the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) on Jun 1. 

The host of the meeting was XIN Hongchuan, the deputy director of Science and  Technology Department of QIBEBT, who first gave an overall introduction of R&D at QIBEBT. WANG Qingfu, the leader of wood-plastic composites (WPC) project, then presented the recent progress of WPC in the institute. The two sides expected further collaboration in varying aspects, on the basis of previous discussion by regular teleconference. 

Jukka KANTOLA also visited the School of Polymer Science and Engineering of the Qingdao University of Science and Technology (QUST) and learned the status quo of the equipments and setups for R&D of WPC. Then Jukka KANTOLA took a tour to the Qingdao Weier Plastic Machinery Co., Ltd. in Jiaozhou. During the visits, more consensus has been reached between KaiCell Fibers, QIBEBT, QUST, and Qingdao Weier Plastic Machinery, based on the joint application of an international collaboration project titled as "High-performance Wood-plastic Composites Molding Technology Based on Unbleached Pulp" early this year. The joint grant is co-funded by MOST (the Ministry of Science and Technology of China) and TEKES (the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation). 

The KaiCell Fibers aims to build a state-of-the-art sulphate pulp mill as the core component in a bio-industrial park, which is designed to accommodate downstream operators, considering the extensive and currently under-utilized fiber wood resources in local areas. Jukka KANTOLA is also the CEO of the NC Partnering, a bioeconomy advisory company set up to utilize collective skills and insights of a diverse team. QIBEBT is now playing an active role in international collaboration and technology transfer.