Meet Matilda, PhD student in Sustainable Chemistry
Can you tell me a bit about yourself?
I am Matilda and originally from a small town in the north of Sweden. I graduated in 2020 with a MSc in Bioresource Engineering and decided that I wanted to work within industry to start with, so before starting here at SU I work at as a laboratory engineer at SSAB for almost two years. But then in May of this year I started as a PhD student at the Department of Materials and Environmental Chemistry in the group SUSMATCHEM led by Assistant Professor Mika Sipponen. The focus of my project is to develop advanced agricultural materials using lignin and non-food sourced fatty acid to the increase effectives and sustainability of the agricultural practices, while also lowering costs for the farmers.
How did you end up at SU?
After hearing some of my friends talk about their work as PhD students, I realised that it sounded like something I also wanted to pursue. When I then started looking for positions as a PhD student I found one here at SU and one of my friends was already one year in to her PhD here and she seem to really enjoy working here. So that together with finding an interesting project related to lignin and sustainability is the reason I applied and then fortunately I got the position.
What do you think makes a good chemistry student?
I think some qualities which make a good chemistry student are:
Critical thinking
Curiosity
Passion for sciences
Hands-on experience
Attention to detail
What did you learn during your studies that you find valuable today?
There are a lot of things I learned during my studies which I consider valuable, but beside just fundamental knowledge in various subjects I would say that some of the most valuable things are:
Time and stress management
Multitasking
Ability to adapt to new situations and unexpected failures
Reviewing literature
Handling chemicals
By studying chemistry one has the possibility to better understand the world around us. By gathering a fundamental knowledge in chemistry one can explain things from cooking and baking to various phenomena in nature. Therefore, it is not just useful if you want to work with chemistry in the future, but also in your everyday life.
Why should anyone study chemistry?
By studying chemistry one has the possibility to better understand the world around us. By gathering a fundamental knowledge in chemistry one can explain things from cooking and baking to various phenomena in nature. Therefore, it is not just useful if you want to work with chemistry in the future, but also in your everyday life.
What motivates you in your role/what are your driving forces?
The things that motivates me are the possibility to be able to contribute to the work towards a sustainable future. We all know about the environmental struggles around the world and the need to work towards making more environmentally friendly and sustainable choices, so for me I feels good to do work that might contribute to a better future in some way.
Green Chemistry provides us with the appropriate tools to transform the industrial and chemical processes into a more efficient and sustainable processes
In what way do you believe chemistry can help build a more sustainable future?
Since chemistry is involved in so many different part of our everyday life it is possible to utilise this to our advantage when trying to build a more sustainable future. In this regard, Green Chemistry provides us with the appropriate tools to transform the industrial and chemical processes into a more efficient and sustainable processes. In addition, Green Chemistry is also linked with the circular economy concept, which encourage industry to recycle and reuse their wastes and by-product streams, using them as feedstocks in the productive cycle instead of the natural ones.
Within my research group we contribute this by utilizing industrial side-streams from different industries to develop advanced materials for various applications. Some examples of these applications are lignin based multifunctional coatings, biocatalytic membranes and lignin polymer networks.
Last updated: 2025-04-12
Source: User EducationIntegration