Dear Colleagues,

It is our pleasure to announce the opening of a new Special Issue in the Sustainability Journal.

Industrialization and the exponential increase in the worldwide human population have drastically affected the living standard and available different resources. These challenges have resulted in continuous depletion of natural sources and also pose many environmental problems, such as emission of greenhouse gases, climate change, and global warming. In this context, the utilization of natural substances demands sustainable approaches to balance the use of environmental resources, economic growth, and moral impartiality. Fermentation technologies, including biorefining technologies, represent a sustainable approach to the production of specific various biobased products such as biofuels, value-added chemicals, and food ingredients. Fermentation technologies can be used for the production of a plethora of useful products, such as food, feed, biochemicals, biofuels, and biomaterials, using renewable sources instead of fossil-based sources. In this regard, sustainable fermentation technology focuses on the addition of value to biowastes and side streams as costless feedstocks for the production of value-added products such as energy-rich chemicals, biopolymers, biofuels, food ingredients, bioactive compounds, chemical building blocks, and materials from wastes. The exploitation of diverse renewable sources, including lignocellulosic biomass, agro-industrial residues, forest residues, food wastes, wastewater released from industrial plants, and waste obtained from brewing and distilling industries for the production of biobased products and value-added compounds through fermentation processes fulfils the economic viability of product manufacture and leads to greater sustainability from an environmental point of view. The proposed Special Issue on “Sustainable Fermentation Technologies” aims to disseminate recent innovative research regarding the emerging role of fermentation and relevant technological developments in the efficient utilization of the abovementioned renewable raw materials for the production of the variety of high-value biobased products discussed above. This Special Issue also aims to highlight the key challenges that arise in this demanding research area. The topics of interest include (but are not limited to) the following potential application of fermentation technologies in:

1. Production of biofuels including liquid fuels (bioethanol, biobutanol, biomethanol, biopropanol/isopropanol) and gaseous biofuels, including biohydrogen (hydrogen generation by photo fermentation and dark fermentation), and biogas (biomethane generated through anaerobic fermentation);
2. Production of industrially important biochemicals, such as biopolymers, bioplastics biosurfactants, xylitol, dyes and pigments, lipids, proteins, organic acids (lactic, acetic, propionic, butyric, succinic), and solvents (acetone);
3. Production of chemicals known as molecules with multiple active groups, such as diols, diamines, dicarboxyacids, and hydroxy fatty acids;
4. Production of useful fine chemicals providing the building blocks for many different products, such as pharmaceuticals, biocides, fragrances, and additives;
5. Production of biomolecules known as biologically active compounds with potential applications in medicine and pharmaceutical products and food industry such as carbohydrates, polyphenols, carotenoids, phytosterols, and fatty acids;
6. Fermentation-mediated wastewater treatment for production biochemicals and value-added products.

The Special Issue considers original research articles, short communications, reviews, mini-reviews, and case studies that make a significant contribution in the field of sustainable fermentation technology. We look forward to receiving your high-quality research.

Prof. Dr. Silvio Silvério da Silva
Dr. Peyman Abdeshahian
Dr. Felipe Antonio Fernandes Antunes
Dr. Avinash P. Ingle
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• fermentation technology
• biomass feedstock, biowastes
• sustainability
• biofuels, value-added products
• bioactive compounds
• chemical building blocks
• biopolymers
• biomaterials