At the Nordic Wood Biorefinery Conference 2012 held in Helsinki, Swedish research institute Innventia presented plans for Swedish and Brazilian research institutes to study the potential uses of wood-based ethanol. Brazil is a world leader in the production of biomass ethanol, while Innventia is a leading institute in the study of lignin, a complex chemical compound commonly derived from wood, and an integral part of the secondary cell walls of plants and some algae.
A possible future area where ethanol can be used is bio-plastics, which can, among other things, be used for packaging. (December 3, 2012)