Microbial Biorefineries For A More Sustainable, Circular Economy

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Background

The increased environmental pressure caused by the current linear economy calls for drastic changes in our production routes. Microorganisms can utilize gas, liquid or solid side-streams and waste as feedstocks, in contrast to non-renewable substrates from (petro)chemical processes or feed- and food grade material from conventional agriculture. Microbial biorefineries relying on natural (non-GMO) microorganisms, either in pure or mixed cultures, can transform low-grade and low-value renewable resources such as side-streams and waste into bio-based products, such as microbial protein, lipids, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), carboxylic acids, alcohols, as well as higher value products such as carotenoids, ectoine, etc. These biorefineries have the potential to tackle multiple environmental issues (waste management, current unsustainable production processes, etc.) and enable the transition to a circular bio-economy with a potential for lower environmental footprint when compared with their conventional production routes.

Driven by the need to generate more sustainable value chains, the field of microbial biorefineries is rapidly growing, with new (microbial) processes under development. To establish the potential for application at large scale, research efforts need to cover the full pipeline from feedstock pre-treatment, to product formation and recovery, and finally the development of novel product applications. The aim of the current Research Topic is to cover promising, recent, and novel trends and advances in microbial biorefineries tapping on low-grade and low-value feedstocks, to advance the understanding of the limitations of currently followed approaches and methodologies as well as define the existing knowledge gaps. At the bioproduction stage, it remains unclear whether diverse (mixed) or specialized cultures or communities (pure cultures or co-cultures) are more suitable, as well as which feedstocks are suitable for each application. Furthermore, current research on microbial biorefineries has addressed to a very limited extent aspects such as downstream processing and process scale-up. At the same time, the diversity of products and applications of some microbially-produced compounds (e.g. carboxylic acids) is still very limited, highlighting the need to explore novel applications. Finally, bioproduction, especially when using side-streams, is often considered sustainable per se. Nevertheless, the environmental benefit of these microbial processes is often counterbalanced by trade-offs in other impact categories, thereby requiring the integration of life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economic assessment (TEA) studies. The questions that still remain in this context are, how and which of these biobased approaches can deliver their promise for a more sustainable future.

Areas to be covered in this Research Topic may include, but are not limited to:

• Microbially produced chemical building blocks (carboxylic acids, alcohols, etc.) and biopolymers (polyhydroxyalkanoates, alginate etc.)
• Microbial protein for food or feed applications
• High value bioproducts (pigments, osmoprotectants, etc.)
• Bioprocess development, optimization and intensification
• Product recovery
• Upstream and downstream processing
• Upscaling
• Emerging technologies and techniques
• Novel applications of microbial products
• Suitability of novel feedstocks
• Sustainability assessment, establishing the costly (environmentally and economically) steps/processes
• Techno economic analysis (TEA), life cycle assessment (LCA)

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

Keywords: circular economy, biotechnology, resource recovery, bioprocess engineering, microbial protein, food, biopolymer, carboxylic acid, biorefinery

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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