Process Intensification towards Sustainable Biorefineries

Dear Colleagues,

The challenge of replacing fossil-based products with bio-based alternatives is pushing toward the development of biorefineries. This task should be achieved also considering urgent sustainability issues from multiple points of view (economic, energetic, environmental, social). Due to the scarcity of resources and the clear impacts of the inappropriate use of primary energy sources, new chemical processes must be conceived in a completely different way. In order to fulfill this requirement, the adoption of process intensification strategies in the biorefinery context is gradually receiving interest due to its ability to increase the efficiency of the phenomena involved. In fact, process intensification principles call for minimizing energy and resource consumption, maximizing the yield of the desired product, avoiding the use of dangerous chemicals, process compactness and production with minimal waste generation.

This Special Issue on “Process intensification towards sustainable biorefineries” has the objective to collect high-impact works focusing on the development of process intensification strategies for the production of biofuels, chemical building blocks and biomaterials. Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Conceptualize processes using energy carriers such as electricity and hydrogen in order to decarbonize the chemical industry.
• Use of unconventional technologies (e.g., microwave, ultrasounds, microreactors, oscillatory reactors, plasma) for maximizing mass and heat transport effects.
• Maximize the use of matter (e.g., carbon, water) and energy by conceptualizing an efficient and sustainable process.
• Design of integrated processes with positive synergies for reaching the sustainability goals.
• Techno-economic assessment and life-cycle assessment providing figures (key performance indicator: KPI) that prove the benefits of process intensification.

Critical reviews summarizing the state of the art and challenges of process intensification in the biorefinery context.

Dr. Giuseppe Pipitone
Dr. Alessandro Monteverde
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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