Innovative Hydrothermal Systems to Valorize Agricultural Residuals for Sustainable Crop Production and Environmental System

Dear Colleagues,

Current global challenges in agriculture include sustainably producing crops and livestock while mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, recycling nutrients, and increasing soil fertility. A key strategy to meet these challenges is the propagation of thermochemical conversion technologies for the cascading use of agricultural residues to return carbon and nutrients to soils for long-term storage and mitigation of environmental pollution. Considerable research indicates that hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) technologies are an excellent selection for serving these goals. The HTC technologies have the potential to replenish nutrients, restore soil health, improve water quality, and increase agricultural production through the utilization of agricultural, municipal, and industrial byproducts. However, there is a lack of guidance on using the HTC derived from different feedstocks, conversion temperature, heating rate, and residence time for achieving both carbon sequestration and crop yield improvement. Although research related to HTC technologies has been increasing yearly, most HTC research has not been organized comprehensively to cover a wide range of conditions. The aim of the Special Issue will cover the fundamental and application research on the various feedstocks and processing conditions and demonstrate the field application of HTC products to document the beneficial effect of HTC technologies on soil carbon sequestration, improvement of crop production, and mitigation of environmental pollution.

Dr. Changyoon Jeong
Prof. Dr. Nicole Berge
Prof. Dr. Sunyoung Bae
Dr. Kyoung S. Ro
Dr. Judy Ann Libra
Guest Editors

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