Heterogeneous Catalysis System for Biofuels Production

Dear Colleagues,

The great interest in biofuels for the transport sector is aimed at providing access to clean gas or liquid fuels while helping to address energy costs, energy security, and global warming concerns associated with petroleum fuels. Biofuels include any energy-enriched chemicals generated through biological processes or derived from chemical conversion from biomass. They are indicated as “first generation” biofuels (as bioethanol synthesized from carbohydrates and biodiesel from fats and oils) or “second-generation” (obtained from non-edible feedstocks as lignocellulosic biomass or woody crops, agricultural residues, or wastes) as a function of the feedstock used. Second-generation ethanol or butanol would be made via biochemical processing but Fischer–Tropsch liquids, methanol and dimethyl ethers, green diesel could be produced by intermediary products, such as syngas, which is obtained from thermochemical processes of biomass. In this field, the research is focused on exploring new and sustainable solid catalysts both for improving the synthesis of first-generation biofuels by replacing commercial homogenous catalytic materials and the production of second-generation biofuels by designing the specific catalyst. Solid materials have the strong potential to replace liquid catalysts showing important advantages, such as easy separation, reusability, and stability, even if they still could suffer from mass transfer limitations, lower activity than liquid systems, and leaching, which make them not suitable for industrial application.

Based on this, this Special Issue aims at collecting recent progress, including challenges and opportunities in the heterogeneous catalytic materials designed and developed for liquid or gaseous biofuels production for transport purposes with a specific focus on innovative chemical formulations or synthesis procedures and exploring the main activity–properties relationships. The main topics are the green chemistry concept, sustainable processes from an environmental and economic point of view, and minimizing the environmental impact, while combusting fuels in transportation.

It is our pleasure to invite you to submit original research papers and short communications within the scope of this Special Issue, "Heterogeneous Catalysis System for Biofuels Production”.

Dr. Catia Cannilla
Dr. Cristina Italiano
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• heterogeneous catalysts
• biofuels
• mixed oxides
• nanomaterials catalysts
• biodiesel
• bioethanol
• green diesel
• FT liquids
• methanol
• dimethyl ethers