Bioenergy and Biorefinery: Feedstock, Biotechnological Conversion, and Products

Abstract

Biorefinery has been suggested to provide relevant substitutes to a number of fossil products. Feedstocks and conversion technologies have, however, been the bottleneck to the realization of this concept. Herein, feedstocks and bioconversion technologies under biorefinery have been reviewed. Over the last decade, research has shown possibilities of generating tens of new products but only few industrial implementations. This is partly associated with low production yields and poor cost-competitiveness. This review addresses the technical barriers associated with the conversion of emerging feedstocks into chemicals and bioenergy platforms and summarizes the developed biotechnological approaches including advances in metabolic engineering. This summary further suggests possible future advances that would expand the portfolio of biorefinery and speed up the realization of biofuels and biochemicals.

Elemental Composition of Biochar Obtained from Agricultural Waste for Soil Amendment and Carbon Sequestration

“…Biorefineries can be categorized by feedstock, type and status of technology (e.g., first-or second-generation biorefinery and intermediate, e.g., syngas platform, sugar platform) [5,6]. At global level, biorefineries generally focus on three main products: biochemical [7], bioenergy (e.g., [8][9][10][11]), biofuels (e.g., [12][13][14][15][16]), and applications in the food and polymer industries (e.g., [17][18][19][20][21]). However,…”

Strategies for the production of biochemicals in bioenergy crops

“…For biological conversion of plant biomass hydrolysates, robust engineered microbial strains are required to allow efficient production of the desired chemicals at high yields, titers, and rates using complex mixtures of low-molecular weight monomers as substrates. Moreover, achieving higher plant biomass yields at reduced cost and enabling efficient deconstruction of the recalcitrant lignocellulosic material represent two other important milestones towards the cost-effectiveness of biochemical production [2,3].…”

Comparative evaluation of Aspergillus niger strains for endogenous pectin-depolymerization capacity and suitability for d-galacturonic acid production

“…Global academic and industrial efforts to improve the sustainability of industrial processes for the modern bio-economy have sparked interest in the utilization of feedstocks that are economically viable, non-food grade, and do not compete with food resources [6,23,26,44,49,51,58]. As a result, agricultural waste streams have gained momentum in the recent years (reviewed by Amoah et al [3]). Notably, downstream fermentation products derived from pectin-rich biomass are met with industrial interest by the plastics, cosmetics, and food industries, as recently reviewed by Kuivanen et al [28], Schmitz et al [46], and Richard and Hilditch [43].…”