Dear Colleagues,

The never-ending anthropogenic activities in the environment lead to the accumulation of various industrial and synthetic toxic pollutants that have disturbed the natural ecosystem in many different ways. The majority of those refractory compounds include agro-industrial wastes like pesticides, antibiotics, petroleum effluents, natural and synthetic polymers like lignin, PLA (polylactic acid), PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) as well as water and food wastes. Microorganisms, in this case, are playing dynamic roles in their bioremediation, biodegradation and bioconversion, while synthesizing high-valued compounds at the same time. For developing a sustainable and green environment, it is tremendously essential to adapt and implement certain novel ways and strategies used by microorganisms to deal with all these refractory organics. The current Special Issue, therefore, focuses and welcome highly valuable research of interest on the following topics, but is not limited to:    

• Microbial lignin valorization through depolymerization to aromatics conversion
• Biodegradation and bioconversion of plastics and composition of biodegradable plastics (PLA, PHA, etc.) for sustainable environment
• Application of microbial enzymes in degradation and conversion of refractory organics
• Bioremediation of soil and water contaminated by PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon), petroleum, pesticides, antibiotics, flame retardants, etc.
• Bioconversion of urban organic wastes, industrial food wastes, and agricultural wastes into value-added products.
• Tech-economic and modeling analysis of soil and water bioremediation
• Novel biological technologies and processes for biomass valorization
• Biodegradation and bioconversion of emerging organic pollutants

Prof. Dr. Shangxian Xie
Prof. Dr. Hongbo Yu
Prof. Dr. Fuying Ma
Prof. Dr. Xiaoyu Zhang
Guest Editors

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• microbial degradation
• bioconversion
• environmental microbiology
• refractory organics
• lignin valorization
• bioremediation
• lignocellulose
• plastics
• polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon