Biorefinery for Sustainable Biochemicals Production: Process Design and Technological Advances
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Materials".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 January 2023) | Viewed by 26772
Special Issue Editor
Interests: biocatalysis and enzyme engineering; biofuel; biomaterial; biochemical engineering; antibiotics; metabolic engineering; glycosylation; bioencapsulation; mutagenesis; protein purification; molecular biology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleague,
To fulfill the demands of an ever-increasing population and ensure sustainable development, the implementation of a bioeconomy based on renewable resources is necessary. Most chemicals are produced using fossil-fuel resources and both their depletion and subsequent waste generation are major challenges. A shift towards renewable resources for biochemical production (food, feed, chemicals, and materials) and bioenergy (biodiesel, bioelectricity, and biogas) can be a suitable alternative for a sustainable economy. A biorefinery is a clean and green technology analogous to petroleum-based refineries. Plants and microorganisms can be utilized for the production of a variety of biochemicals. Different types of biochemicals can be produced using direct extraction from plants, microbial fermentation, and a biotransformation approach. Although the advantages of the biorefinery are well known, biochemical production at the commercial level is still hindered by the unavailability of low-cost raw materials, the inability of microbes to utilize feedstocks efficiently, and low growth and productivity. Advances in molecular biology, fermentation technology, reactor designs, and downstream processing together have been able to overcome some challenges, but there is a long way to go.
Keeping in view the necessity of clean and green technology, the biorefinery is a suitable option and this Special Issue will cover the following, and related, topics:
- The exploitation of natural resources (plants/microbes), mixed culture, and engineered biosystems for biochemical and bioenergy production.
- Development of direct extraction methods from plant biomass.
- Pretreatment and valorization of various biowastes into valuable biochemicals.
- Biochemical production using microbial fermentation and biotransformation.
- Development of efficient immobilization systems.
- Implementation of molecular technology (metagenomics, metabolic engineering, and crisper gene editing) for strain development.
- Improvement of reactor designs for improved productivity and recovery.
- Process designs for upstream and downstream processes.
Dr. Shashi Kant Bhatia
Guest Editor
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. Sustainability 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.