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Fermentation
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Towards the Sustainable Treatment of Organic Wastes via Various Novel...
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Towards the Sustainable Treatment of Organic Wastes via Various Novel Biotechnologies

A special issue of Fermentation (ISSN 2311-5637). This special issue belongs to the section "Industrial Fermentation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 March 2025 | Viewed by 3426

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Xuefeng Zhu

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Environment and Architecture, University of Shanghai for Science and Technology, Shanghai, China
Interests: wastewater treatment; membrane bioreactor; advanced wastewater treatment technologies; treatment and disposal of sludge; membrane separation technology
Prof. Dr. Xuedong Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Anaerobic Biotechnology, School of Environment and Ecology, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China
Interests: organic waste treatment; biotechnology; anaerobic fermentation; pretreatment; bioenergy recovery; resource recovery; carbon neutralization; life cycle assessment (LCA)

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The vast prouction of various organic wastes, such as food waste, agricultural residues, and municipal solid waste, is an ongoing global concern prompting constant research and engineering efforts. The conventional treatment technologies that have historically dominated the field play an essential role in disposing of or stablizing these wastes; however, they negelect the potential resources preserved in these wastes. Due to the challenges of climate change and escalating energy prices, a reevaluation of the traditional approaches to waste, and also the wastes themselves, is impending.

At present, biotechnologies offer a promising paradigm shift in waste(water) treatment. These include fungal, bactieral, or enzymatic pretreatments; anaerobic digestion; fermentation; and electrochemical bioechnologies, which not only signficantly reduce the pollutants in wastes and elevate their potential but also convert these wastes into valuable products, such as bioenergy, biofuels, and biochemicals, with relatively low energy expenses. The recent advancements in biotechnologies, including fungal and various enzymatic pretreatments, fermentation, and anaerobic electrochemical technologies, as well as the value-added products harvested from the processes used to treat wastes, are substantially broadening in application and elevating our understanding of their potential. All these innovations provide viable options for efficient and sustainable approaches to organic waste treatment while facilitating energy and resource recovery.

The objective of this Special Issue is to spotlight recent groundbreaking research and review papers focusing on various biotechnologies, including bio-pretreatment approaches aiming to recover either energy (e.g., methane, hydrogen, electricity) or resources (e.g., biochemicals such as ethanol, lactic acid, succinic acid, VFAs, MCFA, PHA) from organic wastes. Additionally, we encourage the submission of papers discussing the development of low-carbon or energy-neutral or -positive waste treatment systems based on biotechnologies, as well as LCA studies on the wastes themselves. Authors interested in submitting review papers are welcome and should contact the editors beforehand to ensure that their topics align with the scope of the journal.

Sincerely,

Dr. Xuefeng Zhu
Prof. Dr. Xuedong Zhang
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. Fermentation is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2100 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.

Keywords

  • organic waste treatment
  • food waste
  • agricultural waste
  • biotechnology
  • anaerobic fermentation
  • enzymatic pretreatment
  • bioenergy recovery
  • resource recovery
  • carbon neutralization
  • sustainability
  • life cycle assessment (LCA)

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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18 pages, 1879 KiB  
Article
Batch Reactor Design and Conception at Laboratory Scale for Solid-State Anaerobic Digestion: Practical Comparison Between 3D-Printed Digesters and Conventional Methods
by Arnaud Dujany, Franco Otaola, Laura André, Amar Naji, Denis Luart, Mikel Leturia, André Pauss and Thierry Ribeiro
Fermentation 2025, 11(1), 41; https://doi.org/10.3390/fermentation11010041 - 18 Jan 2025
Viewed by 571
Abstract
Solid-state anaerobic digestion (SS-AD) is a promising technology for treating organic waste and producing renewable energy. This study explores the feasibility of using 3D printing to rapidly design cost-effective laboratory-scale digesters for optimization experiments. Batch reactors were designed using fused deposition modeling (FDM) [...] Read more.
Solid-state anaerobic digestion (SS-AD) is a promising technology for treating organic waste and producing renewable energy. This study explores the feasibility of using 3D printing to rapidly design cost-effective laboratory-scale digesters for optimization experiments. Batch reactors were designed using fused deposition modeling (FDM) with polylactic acid (PLA) and stereolithography (SLA) with High Temp V2 resin. PLA had a negligible impact on methane yields, while raw SLA resin positively influenced methanogenic potential, likely due to residual isopropanol used in post-processing, causing a 19% increase in CH4 yield. The performance of the 3D-printed reactors was compared to that of a conventionally machined PMMA reactor using cattle manure as a substrate, showing comparable methane yields and process stability. Three-dimensional printing technologies have demonstrated remarkable efficiency in designing laboratory-scale digesters, with a 70% cost reduction for SLA technology and an 80% reduction in design time compared to conventional reactors designed by plastics processing, while maintaining comparable biogas production. FDM technologies with PLA have shown that they are not suitable for these uses. This study demonstrates the potential of additive manufacturing to accelerate SS-AD research and development. However, care must be taken in material selection and post-processing to avoid introducing experimental bias. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Towards the Sustainable Treatment of Organic Wastes via Various Novel Biotechnologies)
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19 pages, 11809 KiB  
Article
Synergistic Promotion of Direct Interspecies Electron Transfer by Biochar and Fe₃O₄ Nanoparticles to Enhance Methanogenesis in Anaerobic Digestion of Vegetable Waste
by Hongruo Ma, Long Chen, Wei Guo, Lei Wang, Jian Zhang and Dongting Zhang
Fermentation 2024, 10(12), 656; https://doi.org/10.3390/fermentation10120656 - 18 Dec 2024
Viewed by 800
Abstract
When vegetable waste (VW) is used as a sole substrate for anaerobic digestion (AD), the rapid accumulation of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) can impede interspecies electron transfer (IET), resulting in a relatively low biogas production rate. In this study, Chinese cabbage and cabbage [...] Read more.
When vegetable waste (VW) is used as a sole substrate for anaerobic digestion (AD), the rapid accumulation of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) can impede interspecies electron transfer (IET), resulting in a relatively low biogas production rate. In this study, Chinese cabbage and cabbage were selected as the VW substrates, and four continuous stirred tank reactors (CSTRs) were employed. Different concentrations of biochar-loaded nano-Fe3O4(Fe3O4@BC) (100 mg/L, 200 mg/L, 300 mg/L) were added, and the organic loading rate (OLR) was gradually increased during the AD process. The changes in biogas production rate, VFAs, and microbial community structure in the fermentation tanks were analyzed to identify the optimal dosage of Fe3O4@BC and the maximum OLR. The results indicated that at the maximum OLR of 3.715 g (VS)/L·d, the addition of 200 mg/L of Fe3O4@BC most effectively promoted an increase in the biogas production rate and reduced the accumulation of VFAs compared to the other treatments. Under these conditions, the biogas production rate reached 0.658 L/g (VS). Furthermore, the addition of Fe3O4@BC enhanced both the diversity and abundance of bacteria and archaea. At the genus level, the abundance of Christensenellaceae_R-7_group, Sphaerochaeta, and the archaeal genus Thermovirga was notably increased. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Towards the Sustainable Treatment of Organic Wastes via Various Novel Biotechnologies)
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16 pages, 5274 KiB  
Article
Efficient Production of N-Acetyl-β-D-Glucosamine from Shrimp Shell Powder Using Chitinolytic Enzyme Cocktail with β-N-Acetylglucosaminidase from Domesticated Microbiome Metagenomes
by Xiuling Zhou, Yang Huang, Yuying Liu, Delong Pan and Yang Zhang
Fermentation 2024, 10(12), 652; https://doi.org/10.3390/fermentation10120652 - 16 Dec 2024
Viewed by 1065
Abstract
The conventional methods used to produce N-acetyl-β-D-glucosamine (GlcNAc) from seafood waste require pretreatment steps that use acids or bases to achieve the extraction and decrystallization of chitin prior to enzymatic conversion. The development of an enzymatic conversion method that does not require the [...] Read more.
The conventional methods used to produce N-acetyl-β-D-glucosamine (GlcNAc) from seafood waste require pretreatment steps that use acids or bases to achieve the extraction and decrystallization of chitin prior to enzymatic conversion. The development of an enzymatic conversion method that does not require the pretreatment of seafood waste is essential for the efficient and clean production of GlcNAc. In this study, the annotated metagenomic assembly data of domesticated microbiota (XHQ10) were analyzed to identify carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes), and an in-depth analysis of the high-quality genome FS13.1, which was obtained from metagenomic binning, was performed; this enabled us to elucidate the catabolic mechanism of XHQ10 by using shrimp shell chitin as a carbon and nitrogen source. The only β-N-acetylglucosaminidase (named XmGlcNAcase) was cloned from FS13.1 and biochemically characterized. The direct production of GlcNAc from shrimp shell powder (SSP) via the use of a chitin enzyme cocktail was evaluated. Under the action of a chitin enzyme cocktail containing 5% recombinant XmGlcNAcase and a crude XHQ10 enzyme solution, the yield and purity of the final conversion of SSP to GlcNAc were 2.57 g/L and 82%, respectively. This is the first time that metagene-derived GlcNAcase has been utilized to achieve the enzymatic conversion of untreated seafood waste, laying the foundation for the low-cost and sustainable production of GlcNAc. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Towards the Sustainable Treatment of Organic Wastes via Various Novel Biotechnologies)
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Review

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45 pages, 3364 KiB  
Review
Enzymes Produced by the Genus Aspergillus Integrated into the Biofuels Industry Using Sustainable Raw Materials
by Fernando Enrique Rosas-Vega, Roberta Pozzan, Walter Jose Martínez-Burgos, Luiz Alberto Junior Letti, Patricia Beatriz Gruening de Mattos, Lucia Carolina Ramos-Neyra, Gabriel Spinillo Dudeque, Gustavo Amaro Bittencourt, Gabriela dos S. Costa, Luciana Porto de Souza Vandenberghe and Carlos Ricardo Soccol
Fermentation 2025, 11(2), 62; https://doi.org/10.3390/fermentation11020062 (registering DOI) - 1 Feb 2025
Viewed by 310
Abstract
Renewable energy sources, such as biofuels, represent promising alternatives to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and mitigate climate change. Their production through enzymatic hydrolysis has gained relevance by converting agro-industrial waste into fermentable sugars and residual oils, which are essential for the generation [...] Read more.
Renewable energy sources, such as biofuels, represent promising alternatives to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and mitigate climate change. Their production through enzymatic hydrolysis has gained relevance by converting agro-industrial waste into fermentable sugars and residual oils, which are essential for the generation of bioethanol and biodiesel. The fungus Aspergillus stands out as a key source of enzymes, including cellulases, xylanases, amylases, and lipases, which are crucial for the breakdown of biomass and oils to produce bioethanol and fatty acid methyl esters (FAME). This review examines the current state of these technologies, highlighting the significance of Aspergillus in the conversion of energy-rich waste materials. While the process holds significant potential, it faces challenges such as the high costs associated with enzymatic production and final processing stages. Agro-industrial waste is proposed as an energy resource to support a circular economy, thereby eliminating reliance on non-renewable resources in these processes. Furthermore, advanced pretreatment technologies—including biological, physical, and physicochemical methods, as well as the use of ionic liquids—are explored to enhance process efficiency. Innovative technologies, such as genetic engineering of Aspergillus strains and enzyme encapsulation, promise to optimize sustainable biofuel production by addressing key challenges and advancing this technology towards large-scale implementation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Towards the Sustainable Treatment of Organic Wastes via Various Novel Biotechnologies)
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