Stimulating biogas production from steam-exploded birch wood using Fenton reaction and fungal pretreatment

Fungal bioremediation approaches for the removal of toxic pollutants: Mechanistic understanding for biorefinery applications

Pollution is a global menace that poses harmful effects on all the living ecosystems and to the Earth. As years pass by, the available and the looming rate of pollutants increases at a faster rate. Although many treatments and processing strategies are waged for treating such pollutants, the by-products and the wastes or drain off generated by these treatments further engages in the emission of hazardous waste. Innovative and long-lasting solutions are required to address the urgent global issue of hazardous pollutant remediation from contaminated environments. Myco-remediation is a top-down green and eco-friendly tool for pollution management. It is a cost-effective and safer practice of converting pernicious substances into non-toxic forms by the use of fungi. But these pollutants can be transformed into useable products along with multiple benefits for the environment such as sequestration of carbon emissions and also to generate high valuable bioactive materials that fits as a sustainable economic model. The current study has examined the possible applications of fungi in biorefineries and their critical role in the transformation and detoxification of pollutants. The paper offers important insights into using fungal bioremediation for both economically and environmentally sound solutions in the domain of biorefinery applications by combining recent research findings.

Microbial co-cultures for biochemicals production from lignocellulosic biomass: A review

Global reliance on fossil oil should shift to cleaner alternatives to get a decarbonized society. One option to achieve this ambitious goal is the use of biochemicals produced from lignocellulosic biomass (LCB). The inherent low biodegradability of LCB and the inhibitory compounds that might be released during pretreatment are two main challenges for LCB valorization. At microbiological level, constraints are mostly linked to the need for axenic cultures and the preference for certain carbon sources (i.e., glucose). To cope with these issues, this review focuses on efficient LCB conversion via the sugar platform as well as an innovative carboxylate platform taking advantage of the co-cultivation of microorganisms. This review discusses novel trends in the use of microbial communities and co-cultures aiming at different bioproducts co-generation in single reactors as well as in sequential bioprocess combination. The outlook and further perspectives of these alternatives have been outlined for future successful development.