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Bioengineering
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Innovative Biotechnological & Microbiological Strategies for Organic Waste Management
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Innovative Biotechnological & Microbiological Strategies for Organic Waste Management

A special issue of Bioengineering (ISSN 2306-5354). This special issue belongs to the section "Biochemical Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (28 February 2025) | Viewed by 5164

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Rajinikanth Rajagopal

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Sherbrooke Research and Development Center, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 2000 College Street, Sherbrooke, QC J1M 0C8, Canada
Interests: waste management; anaerobic digestion; ammonia/greenhouse gas mitigation; biotechnologies
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Parthiba Karthikeyan Obulisamy

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD 57701, USA
Interests: solid waste biorefinery; sustainable landfill operations and reclamation; waste to energy; greenhouse gas mitigation; biofuels and bioproducts; Algal bioindustries
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability is a pressing demand of the century, and lately, has been a vital topic in global research and political agendas. Yet, concurrent boosting of ecological, economic and social goals continues to be enormously challenging. The concept of waste minimization and recycling are decades old, but often fail to ease the burden on natural resources. The water–food–energy nexus clearly has demonstrated that water, food and energy security are inextricably linked. Disruption of any one of them has repercussions on the others. Thus, the integration of clean technologies is essential to produce quality value-added bioproducts and strengthen its bioeconomy.

Cutting-edge (clean) technology is needed to: recover fertilizer nutrients, save energy, release clean water into the environment, reutilize all parts of the waste and capture new value. Furthermore, bio-based products from agricultural/municipal/industrial wastes, which have their origin as solar energy, can achieve a well-balanced C-cycle compared to fossil alternatives. Thus, the transition to a circular economy has enormous industrial potential and significant benefits for a sustainable environment and society. The principle of the circular economy thus complements the renewable character of the bioeconomy and facilitates C-recycling after efficient uses.

This Special Issue aims to bridge different streams of research ranging from life sciences (genomics), engineering and informatics to identifying biological (including microbial conversions) pathways for production of a range of value-added bioproducts, and compare them to all other current and expected options. This will yield us the coveted “Triple bottom line” outcomes: social, ecological and financial.

Dr. Rajinikanth Rajagopal
Dr. Parthiba Karthikeyan Obulisamy
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. Bioengineering 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 2700 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

  • bio-refinery technologies
  • CleanTech solutions in waste management
  • resource recycling and conservation
  • transformation of organics into bio-products
  • circular economy in waste management
  • microbial ecology and industrial bioprocess engineering
  • technical, economic and legal barriers

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

15 pages, 2761 KiB  
Article
Evaluating Sustainable Practices for Managing Residue Derived from Wheat Straw
by Harikishore Shanmugam, Vijaya Raghavan, Rajinikanth Rajagopal, Bernard Goyette, Linxiang Lyu, Siyuan Zhou and Chunjiang An
Bioengineering 2024, 11(6), 554; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering11060554 - 30 May 2024
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1326
Abstract
Farm leftovers, particularly crop residues, are a key source of renewable energy in Canada. The nation’s robust agricultural industry provides ample biomass, derived from forestry and agriculture resources, for energy generation. Crop residues, such as straws and husks, play a crucial role in [...] Read more.
Farm leftovers, particularly crop residues, are a key source of renewable energy in Canada. The nation’s robust agricultural industry provides ample biomass, derived from forestry and agriculture resources, for energy generation. Crop residues, such as straws and husks, play a crucial role in this biomass reservoir, contributing to biofuel production and greenhouse gas mitigation efforts. Focusing on supply chains, waste management, and emission reduction, this study evaluates the sustainability of wheat straw, an agricultural biomass by-product. The environmental issues of various approaches to managing agricultural biomass were explored. Following an evaluation of biomass features, conversion methods, and economic and environmental advantages, the results show anaerobic digestion to be the most sustainable approach. Four metrics were examined in relation to social elements, and numerous aspects were considered as inputs in the evaluation of transportation costs. The use of electric trucks versus fuel-based trucks resulted in an 18% reduction in total operating costs and a 58% reduction in consumption costs. This study examined CO2 emissions over four different transportation distances. The data indicate that a significant reduction of 36% in kg CO2 equivalent emissions occurred when the distance was lowered from 100 km to 25 km. These findings offer insights for creating practical plans that should increase the sustainability of agricultural biomass leftovers. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Biotechnological & Microbiological Strategies for Organic Waste Management)
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14 pages, 1742 KiB  
Article
Assessment of the Feasibility of Converting the Liquid Fraction Separated from Fruit and Vegetable Waste in a UASB Digester
by Fabrice Tanguay-Rioux, Laurent Spreutels, Caroline Roy and Jean-Claude Frigon
Bioengineering 2024, 11(1), 6; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering11010006 - 21 Dec 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1428
Abstract
Anaerobic digestion of food waste still faces important challenges despite its world-wide application. An important fraction of food waste is composed of organic material having a low hydrolysis rate and which is often not degraded in digesters. The addition of this less hydrolysable [...] Read more.
Anaerobic digestion of food waste still faces important challenges despite its world-wide application. An important fraction of food waste is composed of organic material having a low hydrolysis rate and which is often not degraded in digesters. The addition of this less hydrolysable fraction into anaerobic digesters requires a longer hydraulic residence time, and therefore leads to oversizing of the digesters. To overcome this problem, the conversion of the highly biodegradable liquid fraction from fruit and vegetable waste in a up-flow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) digester is proposed and demonstrated. The more easily biodegradable fraction of the waste is concentrated in the liquid phase using a 2-stage screw press separation. Then, this liquid fraction is digested in a 3.5 L UASB digester at a high organic loading rate. A good and stable performance was observed up to an organic loading rate (OLR) of 12 g COD/(Lrx.d), with a specific methane production of 2.6 L CH4/(Lrx.d) and a degradation of 85% of the initial total COD. Compared to the conversion of the same initial waste with a continuously stirred tank reactor (CSTR), this new treatment strategy leads to 10% lower COD degradation, but can produce the same amount of methane with a digester that is twice as small. The scale-up of this process could contribute to reduced costs related to the anaerobic digestion of food waste, while reducing management efforts associated with digestate handling and increasing process stability at high organic loading rates. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Biotechnological & Microbiological Strategies for Organic Waste Management)
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14 pages, 2838 KiB  
Article
Influence of Hydrodynamic Forces on Electroactive Bacterial Adhesion in Microbial Fuel Cell Anodes
by Alexiane Godain, Timothy M. Vogel, Pascal Fongarland and Naoufel Haddour
Bioengineering 2023, 10(12), 1380; https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering10121380 - 30 Nov 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1569
Abstract
This investigation examined the role of shear stress on the dynamic development of microbial communities within anodic biofilms in single-chamber microbial fuel cells (MFCs). Bacterial attachment to surfaces, often regarded as a crucial step in biofilm formation, may significantly contribute to the selection [...] Read more.
This investigation examined the role of shear stress on the dynamic development of microbial communities within anodic biofilms in single-chamber microbial fuel cells (MFCs). Bacterial attachment to surfaces, often regarded as a crucial step in biofilm formation, may significantly contribute to the selection of electroactive bacteria (EAB). It is well established that hydrodynamic forces, particularly shear forces, have a profound influence on bacterial adhesion. This study postulates that shear stress could select EAB on the anode during the adhesion phase by detaching non-EAB. To examine this hypothesis, MFC reactors equipped with a shear stress chamber were constructed, creating specific shear stress on the anode. The progression of adhesion under various shear stress conditions (1, 10, and 50 mPa) was compared with a control MFC lacking shear stress. The structure of the microbial community was assessed using 16S rRNA gene (rrs) sequencing, and the percentage of biofilm coverage was analyzed using fluorescence microscopy. The results indicate a significant impact of shear stress on the relative abundance of specific EAB, such as Geobacter, which was higher (up to 30%) under high shear stress than under low shear stress (1%). Furthermore, it was noted that shear stress decreased the percentage of biofilm coverage on the anodic surface, suggesting that the increase in the relative abundance of specific EAB occurs through the detachment of other bacteria. These results offer insights into bacterial competition during biofilm formation and propose that shear stress could be utilized to select specific EAB to enhance the electroactivity of anodic biofilms. However, additional investigations are warranted to further explore the effects of shear stress on mature biofilms. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovative Biotechnological & Microbiological Strategies for Organic Waste Management)
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