Antoni Sánchez- Department of Chemical, Biological and Environmental Engineering, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Editorial on the Research Topic
Biorefineries: current configurations, sustainability and economy
The objective of this Research Topic was to collect high quality contributions related to the development of biorefineries, regarding both its global concept and the operations that constitute the entire facilities. Among the papers published, we can found original research papers, reviews and perspective papers on different issues showing the last advances in this topic from the point of view of Environmental Chemical Engineering.
In an overall framework of Circular Bioeconomy, a concept that addresses critical global challenges, including climate change and resource depletion, aligning with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (Mesa et al., 2024), biorefineries have gained a prominent role. In the early 2000s, it occurred the first transition from end-of-pipe waste disposal technologies (such as landfill or incineration) to biological treatments with the aim to recover sources from waste as renewable energy (biogas from anaerobic digestion) and new materials (recycled products and compost). Today, waste treatment plants are moving towards complex facilities, called biorefineries, which can provide a wide range of bioproducts and bioenergy, using raw organic waste as feedstock and thus substituting fossil fuels and non-renewable materials.
The current and future development of biorefineries involves the use of new and existing technologies working in a synergistic way to maximize the production of bioenergy and bioproducts. The interaction and close relationship between well-consolidated processes such as anaerobic digestion with an emerging biotechnology for organic waste as solid-state fermentation is the main topic of one of the papers published: Artola et al. This study explores the combination of technologies, which is in the fundamentals of the biorefinery’s concept. Similarly, another original paper of the Research Topic: Bühlmann et al. explores the integration between anaerobic digestion and lactic acid fermentation by highlighting two of the main challenges that can be found for the implementation of biorefineries: economic viability and a difficult downstream of certain bioproducts to be marketable. These are, by far, the main obstacles to progress in this topic and make its commercial implementation attractive (Calvo-Flores and Martin-Martinez, 2022). In the field of biofuels, another original paper (Whistance et al.) emphasises the importance of having locally available renewable energy sources for the achievement of some Sustainable Development Goals. In this sense, the boost of anaerobic digestion is completely aligned with this trend (Kusch-Brandt et al., 2023).
Alternative routes for obtaining renewable energy from organic waste are the topic of the other two papers included in this Research Topic. They are related to cellulose, which is the most abundant organic polymer on Earth, where is typically found in the form of lignocellulosic biomass. The hydrolysis of this type of biomass results in simple sugars that can be easily transformed into ethanol through fermentation processes, becoming a clean and renewable source of energy. However, this hydrolysis is not straightforward, and a high number of works of recent research have been focused on finding environmentally friendly and low cost technologies to overcome the challenges that this hydrolytic process (Zoghlami and Paës, 2019). In this framework, the first paper (García-Negrón et al.) explores the use of alkaline pre-treatments and enzymatic hydrolysis for sweet sorghum bagasse biomass with an increase of sugar recovery. In the second paper (Park et al.), the authors use an innovative approach by evaluating chitosan-coated enzyme magnetic nanoparticles for cellulose hydrolysis, with excellent results in the reuse of this catalyst after 20 cycles.
In summary, and in a current situation of scarcity of raw materials and energy, the use of organic waste in complex scenarios to maximize its benefits has a promising future, as well as it poses a challenge to scientists and engineers, who have a wide range of technologies and biotechnologies to be used in novel biorefineries.
Author contributions
AS: Writing–original draft, Writing–review and editing.
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References
Calvo-Flores, F. G., and Martin-Martinez, F. J. (2022). Biorefineries: achievements and challenges for a bio-based economy. Front. Chem. 10, 973417. doi:10.3389/fchem.2022.973417
Kusch-Brandt, S., Heaven, S., and Banks, C. J. (2023). Unlocking the Full potential: new Frontiers in anaerobic digestion (AD) processes. Processes 11, 1669. doi:10.3390/pr11061669
Mesa, J. A., Sierra-Fontalvo, L., Ortegon, K., and Gonzalez-Quiroga, A. (2024). Advancing circular bioeconomy: a critical review and assessment of indicators. Sustain. Prod. Consum. 46, 324–342. doi:10.1016/j.spc.2024.03.006
Keywords: organic waste, bioproduct, bioenergy, anaerobic digestion, biogas, solid-state fermentation
Citation: Sánchez A (2025) Editorial: Biorefineries: current configurations, sustainability and economy. Front. Chem. Eng. 7:1545573. doi: 10.3389/fceng.2025.1545573
Received: 15 December 2024; Accepted: 17 January 2025;
Published: 30 January 2025.
Edited by:
Fengqi You, Cornell University, United StatesReviewed by:
Madan L. Verma, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Una, IndiaOlatunde Dahunsi, Bowen University, Nigeria
Copyright © 2025 Sánchez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Antoni Sánchez, YW50b25pLnNhbmNoZXpAdWFiLmNhdA==