Biomanufacturing is emerging as a strategic pillar for sustainable industrial development and is increasingly recognised for its potential to decarbonise manufacturing while improving supply-chain resilience and resource efficiency. Applications now extend beyond traditional bioprocesses to include precision fermentation, bio-based chemicals, advanced biomaterials and biopolymers, biodegradable plastics, enzymatic recycling and plastic upcycling, biofuels and bioenergy, bioelectrochemical conversion, waste and wastewater valorisation, and carbon utilisation. Governments worldwide are investing in national bioeconomy strategies and industrial biotechnology to strengthen economic competitiveness and environmental sustainability.
Despite rapid technological advances, important challenges remain in process scale-up, feedstock availability and pretreatment, manufacturing infrastructure, regulatory pathways, market deployment, and comprehensive sustainability assessment. Addressing these challenges requires collaboration across bioprocess engineering, biotechnology, environmental sciences, economics, and policy.
Goal
This Research Topic aims to bring together multidisciplinary research that advances sustainable biomanufacturing across the industrial biotechnology, energy, environment, and materials sectors. Building on recent advances in microbial cell factories, precision fermentation, biocatalysis and enzyme catalysis, bioelectrochemical systems, and applied metabolic engineering, it focuses on a defining feature of the bio-based transition: the use of waste streams, industrial by-products, and CO₂ as renewable feedstocks, turning low-value or polluting residues into bio-based products within integrated biorefinery frameworks.
The collection seeks to highlight innovations that improve manufacturing efficiency while reducing greenhouse-gas emissions, resource consumption, and waste generation. It also encourages studies that integrate bioprocess engineering, biocatalysis, sustainability assessment, techno-economic analysis (TEA), life cycle assessment (LCA), circular-economy thinking, and policy perspectives to accelerate industrial adoption and support the global transition towards a resilient and sustainable bioeconomy.
Scope and Information for Authors
This Research Topic welcomes original research, reviews, perspectives, mini reviews, and policy and methods articles addressing sustainable biomanufacturing and industrial biotechnology. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: • Industrial biotechnology, microbial cell factories, and precision/microbial fermentation for bio-based products • Biocatalysis, enzyme catalysis, and applied metabolic engineering of microbial biocatalysts for industrial production • Sustainable production of bio-based chemicals, materials, polymers, and biopolymers (e.g. PHA/PHB, bioplastics) • Biodegradable plastics, enzymatic recycling, and plastic upcycling • Waste, wastewater, and industrial by-product valorisation within integrated biorefineries • Bioelectrochemical systems and microbial electrosynthesis for bioproduction, resource recovery, and treatment • Biofuels and bioenergy (e.g. biohydrogen, biogas, biodiesel) and acidogenic/anaerobic conversion routes • Carbon utilisation, CO₂ bioconversion, and bio-based carbon management • Life cycle assessment (LCA), techno-economic assessment (TEA), and socio-economic assessment • Bioprocess scale-up, optimisation, and manufacturing systems for industrial deployment • Policy, regulation, standards, and innovation ecosystems for industrial biotechnology and the bioeconomy
This collection particularly encourages interdisciplinary studies that bridge laboratory innovation with industrial implementation and sustainability-driven decision-making.
Article types and fees
This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:
Brief Research Report
Case Report
Data Report
Editorial
FAIR² Data
General Commentary
Hypothesis and Theory
Methods
Mini Review
Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.
Article types
This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:
Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
