Application and Research of Solid State Fermentation, 2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues,

Agriculture-based and light industries produce huge amounts of waste each year. Here, the production of organic wastes without proper disposal procedures leads to environmental pollution, which has a harmful effect on human and animal health. Although some countries, such as China, have seen the comprehensive utilization rate of this waste reach over 70%, current methods remain rudimentary, as in the returning of straw to fields or directly using it as animal feed. Therefore, the question of how to improve the value of this waste remains a meaningful and challenging one. Fermentation is an effective way to increase the value of these organic wastes. Compared with submerged fermentation (SmF), solid-state fermentation (SSF) has various advantages in the utilization of agricultural and light industry wastes (e.g., crop straw, distiller’s grains, livestock manure, kitchen waste), resulting in low water consumption and cost. Therefore, obtaining potential products via SSF—such as protein feed, edible fungi, organic fertilizer, bio-energy, and Jiaosu—has gradually gained interest in recent years. However, the development of efficient SSF still faces numerous challenges, such as in pretreatment methods, mass and heat transfer, reactor design, the fermentation process, and product efficiency.

The goal of this Special Issue is to publish recent research results as well as review papers on SSF products (e.g., single-cell proteins, edible fungi, biopesticides, enzymes, compost, bio-energy, and Jiaosu), SSF processes (e.g., mass and heat transfer), SSF intensification (e.g., pretreatment, process intensification), SSF reactor design (e.g., new SSF reactors), and the economic and environmental analysis of SSF (full life cycle assessment). Other topics focusing on SSF are also of interest. We look forward to your contributions.

Dr. Yafan Cai
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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• solid-state fermentation (SSF)
• microbial fermentation
• organic waste
• reactor design
• SSF process
• feed protein
• single-cell protein
• compost
• bio-energy