Gustav Nyström

Head Cellulose & Wood Materials at Empa and Lecturer at Department of Health Sciences and Technology ETH Zurich

Research Interests: My current research interests are centered on the use of cellulose and wood as a basis for new smart materials with embedded functionalities. I have a strong focus on the material structure and use this as a starting point to understand how these structures can be optimally used in new materials. The goal is to improve properties or introduce completely new functionalities that are inherently coded in the materials themselves. Tools of specific interest include self-assembly mechanisms, 3D printing, physical templating and interactions with other biological building blocks or microorganisms in biohybrid materials. The research that I am pursuing is structured in three main research themes:

Tailored Biomass Materials

• Nat. Nanotechn., 13: 330-336 (2018)

• Nanoscale, 12:7383-7394 (2020)

• ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng., 10, 342–352 (2022)

• J. Colloid Interface Sci., 641, 338-347 (2023)

• Chem Sus Chem, 16, e2022019 (2023)

Digital Cellulose Technologies

• ACS Nano, 14, 2927–2938 (2020)

• Adv. Mater., 33, 2101328 (2021)

• Small, 19, 2202470 (2023)

• Adv. Sci., 2307921(2024).

• Adv. Sci., 2400403 (2024)

Materials from Living Systems

• Microbiol. Spectr., 10, e03041-22 (2022)

• J. Microbiol. Methods, 203, 106615 (2022)

• Microb. Biotechnol., 107, 1465–1476 (2023)

• Small, 19, 2300771 (2023)

• Adv. Sci., 2403215 (2024)

Short Bio: I am heading the Cellulose & Wood Materials Lab at Empa and am also a Lecturer in the Department of Health Sciences and Technology at ETH Zurich. Before joining Empa I was a senior scientist at ETH Zurich as a member of the Food & Soft Materials group and a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Polymer and Fibre Technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology. I received my PhD in the Nanotechnology and Functional Materials group at Uppsala Unviversity. I am the recipient of the Gunnar Sundblad Research Foundation’s Skills Development Prize (2014), an ETH Zurich Career Grant (2016), an SNSF Ambizione Fellowship (2016) and the KINGFA Young Investigator Award (2020) from the Cellulose and Renewable Materials division of the American Chemical Society. 

Teaching: At ETH Zurich, Department of Health Sciences and Technology
Food Materials Science (2015–).
Food Technology Laboratory Course (2015–2017).

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