Anaerobic Fermentation of Organic Waste: Micrological Insights and Process Optimization

Dear Colleagues,

Organic waste is sourced from industry, agriculture, commercial activities, and domestic living and has a huge global yield. Solving the environmental problems caused by organic waste via anaerobic fermentation is receiving increasing interest. Anaerobic fermentation is a green process that produces high-value chemicals from organic matter. We can harvest hydrogen, methane, fatty acids, alcohols, etc., from organic waste. However, it is difficult to use anaerobic fermentation directly, because mixed inoculation and complex substrates are often used in organic waste treatment. The complex fermentation systems usually imply a low yield and high cost. Hence, significant resources have been invested recently in microbiological mechanisms and process optimization. However, some gaps in knowledge still exist regarding the relationship between microbial species and environmental condition control, metabolic pathways aimed at specific products, residue treatment, low-cost product harvest, and the environmental impact of the life cycle of organic waste. Further research and reports are necessary to provide novel and feasible technical pathways.

This Special Issue aims to publish excellent papers on organic waste fermentation processes. The topics of interest include but are not limited to:

• Organic waste fermentation aimed at chemical production and recovery;
• Organic waste fermentation aimed at methane/hydrogen production;
• The microbial mechanisms of fermentation processes;
• Specific species for targeted fermentation;
• The modelling and optimization of fermentation processes;
• Pretreatment, co-fermentation, and operational control;
• Treatment of residual wastewater and slag after fermentation;
• Life cycle assessments of fermentation processes.

I look forward to receiving your submissions.

Dr. Huan Li
Guest Editor

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. Fermentation is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2600 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.

• organic waste
• anaerobic fermentation
• recovery
• microorganisms
• optimization