Rewarding university graduates for excellent thesis works

Olli Tuovinen gave out the award on behalf of Valmet for Aleksi Sivonen. Noora Raipale was not able to be present at the event but will receive her diploma later. 

The EUR 5,000 Valmet Sustainable Pulping Award is given out annually to an outstanding thesis (master's thesis or doctoral thesis). This year the award was shared by to two recipients:

• Aleksi Sivonen from Tampere University for his master’s thesis, Effect of recovery boiler plant electricity production increase on sustainability. 
• Noora Raipale from Aalto University for her master’s thesis, Improving strength and resilience of foam-formed fibre cushioning.

“Both thesis works were approved with the highest grade 5, meaning excellent. Both works addressed the current sustainability megatrend and were also linked to Valmet’s sustainability targets. Aleksi’s work was done for Valmet. His work included a very challenging modelling and optimization part, where Aleksi developed many new calculation and optimization tools to support the Valmet's existing modelling tools. Noora’s work was done for VTT. It is an excellent example of study on new environmentally friendly alternatives for non-renewable polymeric foams in packaging cushioning,” tells Olli Tuovinen, Development Manager at Services Performance Parts BU. 

“Until 2020 the Valmet Sustainable Pulping Award was given out as Valmet Mechanical Pulping Award. In 2020 we widened the areas to cover chemical and mechanical wood fibre processes, by-products and recovery processes in chemical wood processing, wood-based textile fibre processes, wood-based micro- or nano-cellullose processes and various practical applications of these processes,” Olli Tuovinen adds.