Biomass, Bioenergy and Biofuels for Circular Bioeconomy

Circular Bioeconomy (CBE) is aimed to attain a net zero-carbon society by (a) developing sustainable green technologies and (b) efficient resource utilization strategies to replace the Fossil-Based Economy (FBE). It is currently in the early stage of conceptualization and practice. The CBE mainly relies on biomass carbon (i.e., any biodegradable organic sources) as a building block, while social, economic and environmental components are the key drivers.

The technologies that are proposed to be developed under CBE should ensure that the value of product carbon is maintained and repurposed as long as possible to reduce the waste/wastewater generation, greenhouse gas emissions and damage to the ecosystems by disposal and natural resources depletion. Within the framework of CBE development, as a first step the biomass production, process developments and reutilization strategies need to be well understood to meet the global supply chain and demand. This is followed by the need for techno-economic (TE) and life cycle analysis (LCA) to be developed for each process development and integration, which should also include the wastewater and greenhouse gas repurposing strategies within the biomass, bioenergy and biofuel production aspect of the CBE framework. Finally, the standard and policies could be proposed for successful demonstrations and global realization.

Considering the growing population and demand for dwindling resources, it is very important to adapt the CBE frameworks as early as possible. The lack of available information, resources and research and development are bottlenecks. Therefore, in this Research Topic we aim to compile Original Research and Review articles that are mainly addressing the following themes (but not limited to):
• Biomass biorefinery for energy and biofuels
• Centralized vs. decentralized biomass processing technologies and integration
• Characteristics of biofuel production such as the impact on greenhouse gas emissions, freshwater demand, and nutrients recycling (nitrogen and phosphorous)
• Developing a roadmap for CBE developments and addressing knowledge gaps

Keywords: organic biomass, value chain addition, nutrient recycling, biotechnology, circular economy

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.