Niklas Lorén

Niklas Lorén is researcher in the Product Design unit at RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden) Agrifood and Bioscience. In 2001, Niklas got a PhD in Bioscience. He has a master in chemistry and physics from Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden. Niklas is leading RISE initiativ for industrial usage of large scale research infrastructures lika MAX IV and ESS. The aim of this initiative is to strengthen the industrial competitiveness using these facilities. In addition, Niklas was vice director for the VINN Excellence center SuMo Biomaterials and he is coordinator for the Soft Microscopy Center, whose are both close collaborations between RISE and Chalmers.
His research generally focuses on microstructure-property relationships in soft heterogeneous biobased materials such as foods. The process creates a structure and the structure codes for the properties of the material. Mass transport is essential for many properties of soft materials. Examples are controlled release of aroma and drugs, liquid management in foods and hygiene products, and separation and purification in chromatography products. Niklas research in particular focuses on understanding microstructure-mass transport relationships and how to design the structure to obtain desired functionalities of products and materials. To get a full understanding, it is important to characterize the microstructure at different length-scales using confocal microscopy, light microscopy and electron microscopy. Niklas was one of the initiators for RISE investment in a new transmission electron microscope tailored for contrast weak materails and cryo. Furthermore, image analysis and simulations are important to get quantitative information from the micrographs. Mass transport must be studied at both global and local level to get a full understanding. Quantitative microscopy methods like Fluorescence Recovery after Photobleaching (FRAP), Single particle tracking and Raster Image Correlation Spectroscopy (RICS) are powerful tools to determine local mass transport. In his research, Niklas is combining microscopy, image analysis, simulations and quantitative microscopy to reveal microstructure-mass transport relationships in soft heterogeneous materials. Niklas has work a lot with foods such as hydrogels, biopolymer mixtures, bread, emulsions and chocolate and with othrer soft materials in his research.