The CHEMARTS Cookbook

In the coming years, our material world will change dramatically. In parallel with climate change, our lifestyles will also change. The overuse of existing raw materials cannot continue and global consumption must decrease.

However, our need for materials will not disappear: in the future too, they will come to nurture us, cover us, comfort us, delight us, and keep us alive. This means we need many new ideas, collaboration across all borders and hard work to replace our existing material systems and consumption habits with more sustainable ones. In many cases, bio-based materials are considered the best alternative to currently dominant fossil-based ones.

Could the innovative use of renewable cellulosic materials change our material world? What kinds of materials can we derive from trees, while still respecting the preciousness of nature?

The CHEMARTS Cookbook is a book about wood- and plant-based materials, especially cellulose, aiming to inspire future professionals to explore the potential. The book showcases experimental results, focusing on raw materials that are processed either chemically or mechanically from trees or other plants: cellulose fibres, micro- or nano- structured fibrils, cellulose derivatives, lignin, bark, and wood extractives. It offers both simple and more advanced ideas and recipes for hands-on experiments with these materials.

The recipes were developed and tested by students and staff in 2014–2019 in the CHEMARTS Laboratory at Aalto. The results are far from commercial applications; hopefully future professionals will get inspired to take some ideas further.

Find inspiration, test our recipes in workshops or laboratories, and develop your own experiments! Have fun!

Print and digital version of the book available from Aalto ARTS Books.

Read more info about the book from CHEMARTS website.