Advances in Fermentation Technology for Sustainable Waste Management

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue broadly solicits the latest research on fermentation technologies, particularly focused on waste treatment and resource recovery, to contribute to the development of a sustainable circular society. When healthy and sustainable society is viewed in comparison with the homeostatic system of the human body, the venous system to treat waste and wastewater with recovering valuable materials should be recognized as increasingly important industrial sectors than they are today.

Biomass utilization also causes conflicts with food production and land use if not properly managed. In addition, as biomass is the sole renewable resource for food, feed, and cosmetic materials, cascade utilization and recycling of bio-based materials should be designed so that primary functions are achieved while minimizing environmental burdens initially. Another additional feature of biomass waste is that it could be recognized as a stockyard for the final function of fuel and soil amendment. Here, the key players that connect the elemental cycle are microorganisms that show extensive transformation activity.

Basic and applied research based on fermentation has been widely disseminated, and the recent development of genetic analysis and computational methodologies shows that there is a new horizon for the use of fermentation technology for sustainable waste management, resulting in the expectation for new findings on waste treatment, conversion, and recycling associated with novel microbial functions and utilization systems, uncultivable microorganisms, complex microbial consortia, etc.

We look forward to receiving a wide range of field- and laboratory-level research studies related to the keywords detailed below, thus contributing advancements in waste treatment, environmental remediation, and resource circulation.

Prof. Dr. Kenji Sakai
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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 2100 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.

• microbial conversion of biomass waste and wastewater
• organic waste and wastewater treatment
• aerobic and anaerobic digestion
• composting
• solid and liquid fertilizer
• biogas production
• uncultured microorganism
• meta-genomic and meta-transcriptomic analyses
• microbial consortium and function
• microbial fuel cell
• biocycle of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus elements
• organic waste treatment (human excreta, sewage sludge, livestock manure, food waste, agricultural waste)
• soil amendment and fertilization