Dr. Topias Kilpinen
Main Focus
Hemicellulose, accounting for up to 25% of lignocellulosic biomass, is heavily underutilized. This is due to their inconsistent product quality after extraction. None of the current extraction methods is sustainable, as they consume massive amounts of energy, reagents, and water. I will develop a novel method to achieve clean and green extraction of polymeric hemicellulose from biomass. By achieving this, I am offering a controllable, renewable resource base for sustainable material development.
I am particularly interested in:
- Efficient isolation of pure polymeric hemicellulose from biomass concerning process sustainability
- New potential applications of extracted polymeric hemicellulose
Curriculum Vitae
Dr. Topias Kilpinen is a postdoctoral scientist in the Department of Sustainable and Bio-inspired Materials, headed by Prof. Silvia Vignolini, at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces.
Topias earned his Bachelor’s degree from the Aalto University School of Chemical Engineering (Espoo, Finland) in 2016, with a thesis titled "Manufacturing of All-Cellulose Composites via Surface-Selective Dissolution." He graduated with a Master of Science from the same university in autumn 2019. The title of his master’s thesis was “Regenerated cellulose-based films and laboratory scale equipment for their production”.
In 2024, he graduated with a Doctor of Science in Bioproduct Technology from Aalto University under the supervision of Prof. Eero Kontturi. His doctoral research explored the hydrolysis of biomass into sugars and other commodity chemicals with gaseous hydrogen chloride. In this hydrolysis method, gaseous hydrogen chloride is employed in a gas-solid system at relatively low pressures (0.1 MPa overpressure) to achieve high sugar yields (>90%). Following his graduation, he joined the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in 2025.