Anaerobic Fermentation – a Biological Route towards Achieving Net Neutrality

Dear Colleagues,

The international community adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015 to address climate change by keeping the increase in the mean global temperature to less than 2 ℃ above pre-industrial levels. The increase in mean global temperature is directly linked to the green house gas emissions leading to global warming. Therefore, a strong emphasis was put on net neutrality in the Paris Agreement, followed by its secondment in the recently concluded COP26. To achieve net neutrality, a sustainable circular economy approach is preferred. Amongst the available options, biological routes and especially the ‘Anaerobic Fermentation’ route have immense potential to contribute to net neutrality. This ranges from the production of biogas, biohythane, biohydrogen, or volatile fatty acids from anaerobic digestion to classical alcohol/solvent fermentation for the production of biobased solvents and biofuels, such as bioethanol and biobutanol. Beyond these products, novel high-value biorenewable platform chemicals can also be produced via ‘Anaerobic Fermentation’, thereby maximising their potential. In contrast to conventional feedstocks, to support a circular economy it is paramount that the current generation of ‘Anaerobic Fermentation’ focuses on organic wastes/waste gas streams as feedstocks to produce these products to enable net neutrality.

This Special Issue will therefore exclusively focus on innovative research outputs, short communications, and perspective reviews on the production of biofuels and high-value biorenewables via anaerobic fermentation to support net neutrality. The use of biomass pre-treatments to support/enhance fermentation product yields are also of interest. Full-length review articles are also encouraged, but the authors are required to contact the editor to discuss the topic before submission.

Dr. Sanjay Nagarajan
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.