Dark Fermentation for Biofuels and Chemical Building Blocks

Dear Colleagues,

Accelerating the transition toward a neutral-carbon society requires the consolidation of sustainable biotechnologies to produce fuels and chemicals. Dark fermentation has been largely considered as a promising and cost-effective route for producing (bio)hydrogen from diverse organic residues. Over the past decade, dark fermentation has also been considered as a platform for producing organic acids and alcohols with the potential to be used as value-added chemicals or biomaterial building blocks for diverse upgrading processes (e.g., chain elongation, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) biosynthesis, among others). It is clear that dark fermentation has broadened the range of its potential applications while boosting its role in the future neutral-carbon and circular economy. This Special Issue aims to gather and communicate the latest advances in and around dark fermentation, looking for a renewal discussion on the dark fermentative production of hydrogen, but also carboxylic acids, alcohols, and fine chemicals, as well as novel approaches to enhance their productivity and their integration with novel waste valorization and upgrading processes.

This Special Issue is centered around dark fermentation for biofuels and feedstock chemicals. Research and review papers on the subtopics below (and other related) are welcome:

• Biohydrogen and carboxylic acids;
• Biohydrogen separation;
• Bioenergy and bioproducts;
• Biohydrogen economy;
• Dark fermentation optimization and modeling;
• Waste valorization;
• Valorization of dark fermentation effluents;
• Product recovery;
• Microbial analysis.

Dr. Rodolfo Palomo-Briones
Dr. Jorge Arreola-Vargas
Dr. Juan Ramírez-Morales
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 2600 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.

• dark fermentation
• biohydrogen
• carboxylic acids
• microbial communities
• bioprocess
• chain elongation
• waste valorization