Lari Vähäsalo

Lari Vähäsalo is a chemistry expert with specialties in wood and paper chemistry, biomass fractionation, analytical, organic and process chemistry. His widely published, industry funded research at the Åbo Akademi university has aimed at developing new analytical techniques for laboratories and on-line applications in the paper industry. One of his key achievements was the introduction of Flow Cytometry to the paper industry – today used by virtually all chemical distributers. Mr. Vähäsalo has also successfully solved real-life deposition problems in mills around Europe. During his PhD, he developed and patented a system called DepoSense, which detects deposits by analysing the sound made by the paper machine’s press section. One of his specialties is chemometrics – multivariate data analysis of process chemistry. Mr. Vähäsalo owns Oy ACSI-Solutions Ab, a company focusing on multivariate data analysis, such as analysing and reporting the status of a chemical plant’s process with several thousands of signal inputs. He is also co-founder and chairman of the board in Arbonova, a company which has about 160 customers in 40 countries and owns two worldwide patents on the extraction and use of lignans.

Sebastian von Schoultz

Sebastian von Schoultz is a wood and paper chemistry expert. He has researched the extractives on fibre surfaces as well as the extraction and analysis of wood derivatives, such as wood resins and lignans. This work has been published in a number of peer-reviewed research journal articles. In 2001, Mr. von Schoultz founded Fma SvS, a company focusing on chemical analysis for the pulp and paper industry. He is a board member in Arbonova, BLN-Woods and now CH-Bioforce.