Biorefinery of Lignocellulosic Biomass

Dear Colleagues,

Lignocellulosic biomass is the most abundant and renewable material worldwide, thus making it a viable alternative to fossil fuels. Recent economic, energy, and even social–political factors have boosted the integral valorization of lignocellulosic biomass to facilitate moving from today’s fossil-based economy toward a bio-based economy. Biorefinery is the sustainable utilization of lignocellulosic biomass in a spectrum of commercial products, including biofuels and platform chemicals, to guarantee the highest profitability. However, there are still significant barriers in pretreatment, hydrolysis, and fermentation and its down-streaming processes, which have made commercialization difficult. The potent strains for the production of efficient enzymes and value-added byproducts are far from being thoroughly exploited. Optimization of feedstock pretreatment, enzymatic saccharification and sugar fermentation, together with integrated bioprocesses, remain the key to a biorefineries-based circular bioeconomy. Thus, a multidisciplinary approach to the valorization of lignocellulosic biomass would substantially accelerate progress in modern biorefineries and facilitate achieving commercial sustainability.

The present Special Issue aims to collect and publish both recent research results and review papers in the area of biorefineries based on lignocellulose for the production of biofuels and value-added byproducts. Actual studies addressing challenges in pretreatment, saccharification, fermentation, and integrated bioprocesses are of interest, but recent advances in the development of novel enzymes and microbial strains are also welcomed. If you would like to submit a review article, please contact one of the editors to discuss the relevance of the topic before writing your submission.

Prof. Dr. Yaohua Zhong
Prof. Dr. Yinbo Qu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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