Dear Colleagues,

In the last two decades, biofuels and bio-products have gained increased interest as a way of mitigating the negative influence of the increased use of fossil fuels for transportation, chemicals, and materials on the environment. The shift away from oil and into the use of ligno-cellulosic biomass and waste materials for the production of biofuels, such as alcohols and hydrocarbons, or chemicals, such as carboxylic acids and solvents, often involves the use of specific microbial strains. Some of these microbes possess the ability to produce enzymes of a value during the upfront thermo-chemical decomposing of biomass materials into C6 and C5 sugars; other microorganisms specialize in converting these sugars or the lignin degradation products into target bio-products. Significant effort has been further invested into engineering metabolic pathways, especially in well-known microbial workhorses such as E. coli, Baker’s yeast, and Aspergillus fungal strains, to create improved biocatalysts with a high titer and yield, enhancing the economics of biofuels/bio-products production. Generally, microbial production is conducted by growing the target microbe in a bioreactor. However, in nature, microorganisms often live and function in consortia, and the idea of mixed cultures for the production of biofuels and bio-products has had increased interest over the last few years. In the second rendition of “Microbes for Biofuels and Bio-products”, we encourage contributions using consortia as the basis for microbial production.

The lowering of climate gasses in the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide, is a major task for the coming years. This has increased the interest in producing both biofuels and bio-products through technologies which build up novel compounds from CO₂ using excess electricity or hydrogen (H₂) from electrolysis. While the focus within power-to-X has been on catalysis reactions, a large suit of microbes exists with the capability of producing valuable biofuels and bio-products through the gaseous fermentation of CO₂ with H₂. CO₂ sources could come from industrial production as well as ethanol and biogas facilities.

In this Special Issue of Microorganisms, we invite you to contribute with a paper covering the state-of-the-art or emerging aspects of microorganisms that currently or could potentially play a role in the production of biofuels and bio-products. We are interested in work covering landmark research performed over the last few years, with specific interest in contributions pointing towards novel directions having not yet been examined in great detail. Such contributions could cover microbes converting lignin into biofuels and bio-products; microbes converting gaseous substrates such as CO₂ with H₂, syngas or biogas into high-value products; or microbial production using mixed cultures.

Prof. Dr. Birgitte K. Ahring
Dr. Mette Lubeck
Guest Editors

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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. Microorganisms 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 2700 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.

• microbes for production of biofuels and bio-products
• lignocellulosic enzyme production
• genome-scale engineering of biocatalysts for production of biofuels and bio-products
• microorganisms for the conversion of lignin monomers
• gaseous fermentation to biofuels and bio-products
• perspectives for mixed cultures for biofuels and bio-products

• Microbes for Production of Biofuels and Bio-Products in Microorganisms (15 articles)