Fermentation Process in Biorefinery

Dear Colleagues,

The advent of biorefineries as a global framework for processes and product development out of biomass cannot be denied after the enormous amount of work throughout the last two decades. It is evident that substituting the huge variety of energy vectors and chemical compounds obtained from fossil resources is possible. However, this only can be achieved using a step-by-step approach to derive such compounds (or their functional analogues) from the complex matrix that biomass represents. To this end, the knowledge extracted from petrochemical, gas, and coal processes is critical, not only in terms of chemical approaches to biomass, but also in process implementation, logistics, and economics. Biorefineries can be envisaged as a huge effort to introduce human industrial activities to produce energy, chemicals, food, and feed into nature cycles, ultimately creating a real industrial ecology. It is therefore an opportunity for humankind to finally create a recyclable, nature-friendly approach to use nature’s resources. However, at the same time, it does not come without its challenges, since optimal biomass-based processes are yet to be discovered. First-generation biorefineries have been a good attempt to understand and capitalize on food biomass, but they pose the challenge of not providing sufficient biomass for all the prospective needs of biorefineries. Thus, second-generation biorefineries come hand-in-hand with a new perspective since biomass of vegetal origin suffices, in gross numbers, to fulfil humankind’s needs, especially if new fast-growing species are created by genetic technologies and currently non-productive land is turned into fertile soils. All the chemical and biochemical knowledge gained throughout the last century regarding the use of both biomass and fossil resources should pave our way to imagine and investigate new chemical routes, catalysts, enzymes, and microorganims able to transform biomass such as lignocellulose, polysaccharides, fats and oils, proteins, and minor components into profitable products by implementing sustainable processes and related activities.

The aim of this Special Issue is to collect works on the use of biomass, including thermochemical and biochemical-catalytic routes to energy vectors, chemicals, food and feed products by means of biological catalysts (e.g., enzymes, microorganisms, superior cells). Thus, the focus is to give a global vision of the current significance of biorefineries at lab and pilot-plant scale and ultimately in prospective industrial reality in the near future. In this vision, not only compounds and chemical reactions should be considered, but process development and sustainability assessments should also take place.

Prof. Dr. Miguel Ladero
Guest Editor

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• biorefinery generation
• bioenergy and biofuels
• biomass
• platform chemicals from biomass
• synthesis gas
• fractionation
• pretreatments
• saccharification
• transesterification
• catalysis and catalytic routes
• enzymes
• biocatalysis and bioprocesses
• sustainability
• circular economy
• life cycle