Green Chemistry and Biofinery Concepts on Biomass Valorisation

Dear Colleagues,

One of the utmost challenges of society is to move from a non-renewable and polluting fossil-based economy to a more sustainable model of economic development. To cover such a demand, circular economy and bioeconomy have been implemented to encourage the use and reuse of renewable resources, such as biomass feedstocks. However, conventional biomass processing and converting technologies still face some bottlenecks, such as lack of efficiency and selectivity, difficult downstreaming, undesired side reactions and equipment corrosion, which compromises full and economical biomass valorisation. Therefore, a biorefinery concept that predicts the utilization of biomass in different processing platforms towards the production of energy, fuels, materials and chemicals must be employed analogous to a petroleum refinery. In addition, this activity must also be guided by green chemistry principles, which contemplate good practises in chemistry processing to achieve low impacts on the environment and public health. Otherwise, no significant benefit is gained from biomass in contrast to non-renewable feedstocks.

In this context, this Special Issue, entitled as “Green Chemistry and Biorefinery Concepts on Biomass Valorisation” aims at gathering cutting-edge studies and innovative technologies on the entire biomass processing value chain assisted by green chemistry tools (e.g., ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents, supercritical fluids, green catalysts and reagents) with potential to be integrated into biorefinery platforms. Authors are encouraged to submit their contributions in different hot topics as follows:

• Extraction of value-added compounds from biomass using green technologies, including microwave and ultrasound;
• Application of green solvents on biomass pre-treatment and fractionation;
• Enzymatic hydrolysis of biomass components in green solvents;
• Lignin depolymerization into aromatics through the application of green catalysts and solvents;
• Catalytic conversion of sugars into platform chemicals (aromatics, organic acids, furans, etc.) with green approaches;
• Cellulose and lignin application in novel materials using green chemistry approaches;
• Fermentation of sugar-based streams into biofuels and biochemicals;
• Conversion of fat-based biomass or oil streams assisted by green catalysts towards the production of biodiesel and jet fuels;
• Extraction and valorisation of protein-based streams with green solvents and catalysts;
• Downstream processing focused on the recycling of green solvents and catalysts as well as on the purification of produced biofuels, biomaterials and biochemicals.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Sustainability.

Dr. André M. Da Costa Lopes
Prof. Dr. Claudia Antonetti 
Dr. Filipe Hobi Bordón Sosa
Guest Editors

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