Unlocking Biomass-to-Bioenergy Potential in the Biorefining Framework: Emerging Trends and Opportunities

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Background

Bioenergy plays an important role in the development of a sustainable future, owing to its renewable nature and relatively low carbon footprint. Bioenergy is derived from organic matter/biomass, wherein feedstock such as energy crops, agricultural residues, and organic wastes can be converted to various forms of biofuels or bioelectricity. In the context of the current global climate crisis caused by the continued combustion of fossil fuels, the adoption of bioenergy has numerous benefits including the reduced contribution to climate change, enhancement of energy security, and positive environmental effects such as waste minimization, resource recovery, and bioremediation. Various thermochemical and biochemical biomass-to-bioenergy conversion technologies including direct combustion, gasification, pyrolysis, and anaerobic digestion.

Nevertheless, further research is required to valorize various feedstocks into clean bioenergy, especially in the context of multiproduct biorefineries where the end goal is the synthesis of various high-value biochemicals in tandem with one or more forms of bioenergy.

Biomass-to-bioenergy conversion necessitates the sustainability of biomass feedstock generation as well as clean and efficient conversion techniques with minimal greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, the development of novel strategies is essential to achieve sustainable and economically viable bioenergy production at large-scale. Elevated capital and operational costs associated with biomass-to-bioenergy production are critical hurdles that should be overcome to achieve sustainable real-world bioenergy production. Thus, efficient valorization of biomass feedstocks by adopting multiproduct biorefining principles with minimal residues would be highly beneficial due to the potential of process integration and value generation. In this regard, the research topic aims to invite articles that have scrutinized emerging trends and opportunities in biomass-to-bioenergy production while also placing special emphasis on studies conducted within the framework of biorefinery development. Hence, it is expected that the research topic would a collection of novel articles that highlight the state-of-the-art of biomass-to-bioenergy production from diverse biomass feedstocks with a focus on biorefinery applications.

In this special issue, articles focusing on the areas listed below will be considered.

- State-of-the-art of biomass-to-bioenergy conversion from various feedstocks
- Efficient and sustainable downstream processes for bioenergy production at pilot or large scale
- Innovative process integrations for the incorporation of bioenergy in the framework of sustainable biorefineries
- Resource recovery from waste streams for bioenergy production
- Co-production of high-value products concurrent to bioenergy production
- Lifecycle and techno-economic analyses of bioenergy production and biorefineries

Authors are encouraged to submit Research articles, Review/Mini reviews, Opinion and Perspective articles.

Keywords: Bioenergy, Biorefinery, clean technology, circular bioeconomy, sustainable energy

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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