Bioresource Technology 331 (2021) 125024

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Bioresource Technology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biortech

Preface

Renewable hydrogen production from biomass and wastes (ReBioH2-2020)

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords Growing consumption of fossil reserves to meet the rising demand of energy has led to climate deterioration and
Renewable biohydrogen simultaneous waste generation, urging modern society to find sustainable energy resource that can meet the
Dark fermentation growing energy demands and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprints. In this aspect, hydrogen
Microbial electrolysis cell
(H2) is one of the most promising sustainable clean fuels that has gained significant interest in recent years. This
Bioresources
article highlights the major research progress on biohydrogen production from renewable bioresources such as
Industrial waste
Gasification organic wastes, lignocellulosic biomass, algal biomass, and industrial wastewaters. It summarizes the research
highlights of manuscripts published in the special issue (VSI: ReBioH2-2020), which contains twenty-two arti­
cles, including seven critical reviews and fifteen research articles, focusing on biotechnological and thermo­
chemical routes for biohydrogen production from renewable feedstocks. The major findings of the research
works in this special issue can be used as a road–map for sustainable renewable hydrogen production from
bioresources.

1. Introduction growing drastically in recent years. It shows immense potential in

Urbanization and economic developments aimed at sustaining the
growing population have resulted in significant increases in energy de­
mand and consumption with the simultaneous generation of a huge
amount of organic waste. According to the International Energy Asso­
ciation, total world energy production driven by fossil fuels, including
natural gas, coal, and oil. Of the 14,421 million tonnes of oil equivalent
(Mtoe) produced in 2018, 81% was derived from fossil fuels
(https://www.iea.org/). Consumption of finite fossil fuel reserves has
resulted in critical environmental and climate damage; a sustainable
green future requires concerted efforts to find alternative energy re­
sources. In addition to technological development, policies for major
transformation towards renewable energy production are needed to
ensure that the global temperatures do not rise to >2 ◦ C above pre-
industrial levels (Liu et al., 2020). Aims should be to limit the increase
in global temperature to 1.5 ◦ C above pre-industrial levels (Liu et al.,
2020). In view of this, renewable energy resources such as hydro, wind,
solar, nuclear, and organic waste have been considered to produce
alternative carbon-free energy resources in recent years. Currently,
varying renewable energy policies by developing countries requires the
implementation of advanced bioenergy technologies with annual
growth rate of 3.1% until to 2030. Modern advanced bioenergy
contributed to 5.1% of total energy demand excluding traditional use of
biomass.
Hydrogen (H2) - a versatile carbon-free clean fuel - produces only
water as a by-product. Hydrogen is has high energy density ranging from
120 to 142 MJ/kg and is capable of tackling critical energy demands
driven by fossils fuel consumptions. Hydrogen production has been
transforming the global energy production strategies towards a more
sustainable and greener future by contributing to 8% of global energy
demand by 2050, through cost-effective production of 2.50 USD/kg
(Hydrogen Council 2050) (https://hydrogencouncil.com/ko/). Consid­
ering the limitations and impact of fossil fuel consumption, most
countries proclaimed ambitious project plans for a sustainable H2-based
economy for transport and industrial sectors. According to the Hydrogen
Council (2020), the global share of hydrogen will increase to 15–18% by
2030 with a further reduction of delivery cost to 1.80 USD/kg. Addi­
tionally, the demand for hydrogen has increased every year with its
application in NH3 production (51%), oil refining (31%), CH3OH pro­
duction (10%), etc. Recently, the appeal of H2 as a sulfur-free fuel for
transportation and for electricity production, has increased H2 demand.
Currently, most hydrogen (~96%) is obtained from petroleum-based
non-renewable feedstock such as natural gas through a steam methane
reforming process, electrolysis, and liquid reforming, but these pro­
cesses are costly and not environmentally-friendly for continuous pro­
duction. The excessive exploitation of fossil-based resources has
increased greenhouse emissions causing environmental concerns. Bio­
logical processes can aid in the shift towards development of alternative
routes to achieve sustainable hydrogen-based bioeconomy. Through
naturally occurring processes, hydrogen is captured and chemically
transformed in the form of water, and lignocellulosic biomass, microbial
biomass, organic wastes; etc can be used as renewable, low-cost sub­
strates in various biohydrogen production strategies. Renewable
hydrogen strategies seek to decarbonize the current fuel scenario,
improve energy security with clean energy transformation, promote and
strengthen environmental protection and pave the way forward for

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biortech.2021.125024

Available online 17 March 2021

0960-8524/© 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Preface
international economic development.
Towards these ends, this special issue published new logical research
articles to accomplish a renewable hydrogen energy society in the near
future. The objective of this special issue is to extend knowledge and
recent progress in renewable biohydrogen production. Biohydrogen
production from waste organic materials could meet the desired criteria
for a decarbonized economy. However, biohydrogen is still facing
challenges of process optimization and scale-up. Additionally, this issue
emphasized the various biotechnological, and thermochemical routes
such as dark fermentation, biohythane production, utilization of
microalgae, lignocellulosic biomass and organic-rich waste streams for
biohydrogen production. Moreover, this review also emphasize inte­
grated biorefinery development and technoeconomic, socioeconomic
studies for biohydrogen production for commercial viability.
2. Recent advances in biohydrogen production: Approaches and
challenges
2.1. Dark fermentative hydrogen production
Hydrogen and gaseous fuels from renewable feedstocks have opened
up future possibilities to substitute fossil energy resources to combat
global warming and energy needs. Renewable biohydrogen from an
integrated biorefinery is critical for developing a low carbon fuel
economy with biowaste remediation in an environmentally–friendly
way. In this special issue, the authors review the potential challenges;
environmental, economic, and social aspects that need to be tackled for
commercial-scale production (Dahiya et al., 2021).
Dark fermentative biohydrogen production involves the anaerobic
digestion of various renewable resources such as crop residues, agri­
cultural biomasses, organic waste, the organic fraction of municipal
solid waste, and organic-rich wastewater into carbon dioxide-free
hydrogen. It is a highly efficient process with high hydrogen produc­
tivity and could develop long term energy projects using renewable
energy resources. Theoretically, 4 mol H2/mol hexose can be produced
through the acetate (1), or butyrate (2) pathway. Comparatively, the
butyrate pathway produced a low hydrogen yield (2 mol H2/mol hex­
ose). The investigation by Dauptain and co-workers revealed that
hydrogen production could be significantly affected by inoculum, stor­
age condition, and the microbial community. They showed that long-
term freeze-drying could improve hydrogen production in dark
fermentation (Dauptain et al., 2021).
C6 H12 O6 + 2H2 → 2CH3 COOH + 2CO2 + 4H2 acetate pathway (1)
C6 H12 O6 → 2CH3 CH2 CH2 COOH + 2CO2 + 2H2 butyrate pathway (2)
2.1.1. State-of-art technologies for continuous hydrogen production
aIn the past, several reports have been presented to the scientific
domain for dark fermentative hydrogen production focusing on carbon
feedstock, reactor design, operational condition, and the nature of the
inoculum at a laboratory scale. However, further assessment of various
controls for high production rate is needed to commercialize dark
fermentation technology. Therefore, Park et al. (2021) reviewed the
various operational methods, reactor configurations, and microbial
communities for high rate hydrogen production. They concluded that
assembly improvement, bioreactor regulations, operational strategies,
and reactor configurations could impact the hydrogen fermentation
technologies. They reported that a continuous high hydrogen produc­
tion rate could be achieved by maintaining symbiosis between
hydrogen-producing bacteria and biofilm-producing bacteria to avoid
washout. Use of mixed culture, maintaining production parameters such
as hydraulic retention time (HRT), organic loading rate (OLR), pH,
substrate concentration, operating temperature, and microbial com­
munity coupled to statistical analysis could lead to higher productivity.
Disposal of the organic municipal solid waste fraction is a major
2
Bioresource Technology 331 (2021) 125024
challenge nowadays with a growing economy. In recent years, dark
fermentation of organic-rich waste streams demonstrated an economical
and environmentally friendly way for bioremediation of organic wastes,
simultaneously producing biohydrogen. However, the complex struc­
ture of organic waste and low hydrogen yield are major obstacles for
large-scale activities. Recent reports showed that the coupling of
fermentation with biological anaerobic pretreatment could effectively
improve hydrogen production. For example, Paillet and co-workers
investigated the effect of three heat shock pretreatment conditions on
recycled organic-rich efficacy, including initial heat shock (90 ◦ C, 30
min), systematic heat treatment and without any heat treatment.
Optimal conditions achieved with systematic heat treatment, yielded a
maximum of 17.2 ± 3.8 mLH2/gVS with a 331% increase in stable
productivity of 1.51 ± 0.29 mLH2/gVS/h after the 8th recycling cycle
(Paillet et al., 2021).
Renaudie et al. (2021) investigated dark fermentation activities and
developed a hollow fiber continuous liquid/ gas (L/G) fermenting
membrane bioreactor for continuous long-term hydrogen production
without seeding. They evaluated the membrane’s role in retaining
hydrogen-producing bacteria using waste industrial sludge, which
reduced in-between seeding. A steady-state reactor operating for 551
days without seeding produced 1.1 ± 0.2 mol H2/mol sugar (added
initially), and maximum productivity of 135 ± 22 mL H2/L/h was
achieved using acetate and butyrate metabolites. They noted that an L/G
membrane served as an interface for in situ hydrogen extraction and
preserved the Clostridium beijerinckii, Clostridium pasteurianum, and
Enterobacter sp. In another article in VSI ReBioH2-2020, Sarkar and his
colleague showed the optimized and scale-up activity in uncontrolled
pH conditions for H2 and volatile fatty acids (VFAs) production using
brewery spent grains (BSG) (Sarkar et al., 2021). Additionally, they
evaluated the impact of varying pH (4–10) on acidogenic fermentation
of BSG at different scales (2, 5 and 10 L). The two-stage study showed
that the first stage stabilized the pH, whereas the second stage optimized
hydrogen production. Moreover, the initial alkaline condition could
serve as a pretreatment agent to hydrolyze soluble carbohydrates, which
could further increase the enzymatic yield and simultaneous bio­
hydrogen production by 15–90% with a maximum volume of 834 mL
and 10–50% higher volatile fatty acid (8936 mg/L). Extension of
fermentation time could significantly favor short-chain fatty acids
(SCFs) to medium-chain fatty acids (MCFs). This approach could be
adopted and coupled to pretreatment with the simultaneous conversion
of native biomass to biohydrogen and VFAs.
Rambau and co-workers highlighted the enrichment in biohydrogen
production using nano-metal oxides-based dark fermentation reactions
(Rambabu et al., 2021). They reported that the rice mill wastewater
stream could be enriched in organics, which can be employed for
hydrogen production. Inclusion of NiO and CoO nanoparticles in the
fermentation broth of wastewater received from Rice mill industries
using Clostridium beijerinckii DSM 791 could further improved bio­
hydrogen production by 2.09- and 1.9-fold using 1.5 mg/L of NiO (~26
nm) and CoO (~50 nm) nanoparticles through acetate and butyrate
pathways. The results showed that fermentation could effectively reduce
77.6 and 69.5% of chemical oxygen demand (COD) using NiO and CoO
metal oxides as quantified by the Gompertz kinetic model. François et al.
(2021) showed that endogenous dark fermentation of wine byproducts
(grape must residues), could produce 35 L H2/L biomass and yield of 1.6
mol/mol hexose respectively. They showed that endogenous microflora
enriched in Clostridium spp. (butyricum, beijerinckii, diolis, and roseum)
phylotypes could efficiently degrade sugars to hydrogen molecules
without any addition of nutrient medium or heat treatment.
2.2. Microbial electrolysis cell (Bioelectrical systems)
Bioelectrical systems (BES) are novel, highly promising bio­
electrochemical approaches nowadays for transforming organic mate­
rials into valuable chemicals, fuels, electricity, or biohydrogen for
Preface
circular economy and clean energy production. Typically, microbial
electrolysis cells (MEC) are considered a promising BES system for
renewable biohydrogen production from organic resources that utilize
anodic bio-catalytic oxidation and cathodic reduction processes (Yang
et al., 2021). Self-sustainable MEC bioelectrochemical tools can trans­
form organic carbon and waste organic water into hydrogen with low
energy requirements, i.e., >0.14 V compared to water electrolysis, i.e.,
>1.2 V. They showed that using a high catalytic, cost-effective cathode
catalyst may promote commercial applicability of MEC process toward
self-sustainable high yield hydrogen production. Industrial wastewater
treatment strategies, energy recovery from waste and value-added
products can be coupled by metabolic diversity. They showed that
coupling of microbial electrolysis cell systems with other carbon-free
biotechnologies such as pretreatment, pyrolysis, and fermentation
could collectively improve the enhanced rate of biohydrogen to 4.3 L
H2/L-day and 50.4% yield. Moreover, chemical pretreatment of organic
wastewater stream can significantly convert organic wastes into simpler
molecules that can be digested by exoelectrogens in MECs systems. The
study revealed that an enhanced rate of biohydrogen (0.59 m3 H2/m3/d)
was reached using lignocellulosic biomass employing direct fermenta­
tion before MEC, wherein VFA produced in fermentation served as
feedstock to subsequent MEC utilization. To achieve high hydrogen
yield, two-chamber microbial electrolysis cells separated with a biode­
gradable membrane showed significant improvement in hydrogen pro­
duction. Nafion (DuPont) has a widearray of membranes for hydrogen-
producing microbial fuel cells, however, the high cost of membranes
limits commercial applicability. Therefore, González and co-workers
demonstrated a new cost-effective, eco-friendly membrane comprised
of polyvinyl alcohol/ chitosan (PVA/ CS) for hydrogen production. A
long term operational study revealed that their PVA/CS membrane
could retain its stability for a month, yielding 974 ± 116 mL H2/g ac­
etate at a production rate of 1277 ± 46 mL H2/Lcathode/d (González-
Pabón et al., 2021). Biocompatible PVA/CS showed great potential for
future hydrogen production with social, environmental and economic
importance.
In another study published in VSI, Li et al. (2021) demonstrated a
novel approach for biohydrogen production using Rhodobacter sphaer­
oides using a microbial electrosynthesis cell. When they used CO2 as a
carbon source and applied − 0.9 V vs. Ag/AgCl potential to the cathode,
they found R. sphaeroides produced 328 mL H2/L/day on a carbon
electrode in an MES cell under optimized condition (Li et al., 2021). In
another report published in VSI ReBioH2-2020, the PROMETHEE II
method has been displaced with two cation exchange membranes
(PSEBS SU22 and CF22 R14) and one bipolar membrane for high
hydrogen performance in MEC cells (Cardeña et al., 2021). They docu­
mented membrane materials for this technology and filed a patent,
where they developed a novel PSEBS SU22 for superior hydrogen
production.
2.3. Biohythane production
Biohythane is notable and promising gaseous fuel consisting of bio­
hydrogen (10%) and biomethane (30%) produced via two-stage anaer­
obic fermentation of organic materials such as agricultural residues and
animal wastes through co-digestion with reduced nutrient demand.
Animal waste such as pig manure is categorized by the presence of high
moisture with a significantly low carbon-to- nitrogen (C/N) ratio
compared to lignocellulosic biomass such as rice straw. Thus, a study
published by Chen et al. (2021) showed the co-digestion of lignocellu­
losic biomass (e.g., rice straw) and animal waste (e.g., pig manure) to
attain nutrient balance using mesophilic-thermophilic (M1-T1) AcD and
thermophilic-mesophilic (T2-M2) AcD system for biohythane produc­
tion. They found that a maximum ratio of 8.44% v/v (hydrogen:
methane) was obtained from rice straw and pig manure. Additionally,
T2–M2 produced pronounced hydrogen (16.68 ± 1.88 mL/gVS) and
methane (197.73 ± 11.77 mL/gVS). This approach could be beneficial
3
Bioresource Technology 331 (2021) 125024
for development of sustainable technology that employs co-digestion of
animal waste and lignocellulosic biomass for biohydrogen production in
a cost-effective way with higher efficacy compared to the mono diges­
tion process.
2.4. Microalgal biomass for biohydrogen generation
The photosynthetic microorganisms, cyanobacteria microalgae can
produce biological renewable hydrogen through microbial photolysis
and fermentation. In the photosynthetic process, microorganisms utilize
sunlight to split H2O to produce in-situ hydrogen in the surrounding
atmosphere. Microalgae are considered third-generation biomass, which
have immense potential for biohydrogen and value-added chemical
production. Microalgal biohydrogen has gained global interest owing to
its carbon–neutral source for sustainable energy. Salakkam et al. (2021)
provided a detailed review focused on valorization of microalgal
biomass for biohydrogen production and elaborated the various aspects
such as algal strains, cultivational practices, and harvesting. They have
also provided the factors and characteristics that affect the overall
fermentation performance such as biomass pretreatment methods, dark
fermentation, photo fermentation efficacy, co-digestion with organic
materials, technoeconomic study, and application of advanced molec­
ular biology for enhanced biohydrogen production.
In this special issue, El-Dalatony et al. (2020) review the different
metabolic pathways for microalgal biohydrogen production from the
last five years while focusing on operational cost and economic viability
of microalgal hydrogen. In this in-depth review, they highlighted the
major factors such as light, cell density, nutrition composition, and
microalgae availability. Moreover, they summarized the different pre­
treatment approaches for high conversion efficiency. With that, they
emphasize a new approach, i.e., microbial electrolysis cells for micro­
algae biohydrogen production. In this review, they summarized various
tools such as genetic, metabolic engineering and synthetic biology for
further improvement in microbial biohydrogen production via inhibi­
tion of competing pathways and oxygen tolerant hydrogenase.
Goswami and co-workers critically reviewed the different pathways
and enzyme involvement for economical production of hydrogen in
microalgae and discussed integrated bioprocess engineering strategies
for improved hydrogen production. In their published article in this VSI,
Goswami et al. (2021) showed that the hydrogen production tendency of
microalgae is highly dependent upon strain selection, environmental
parameters, enzymes types, metabolic pathways, etc. Microalgae are
single-cell, photosynthetic aquatic microorganisms that mainly consist
of carbohydrates, lipids, and protein. They can produce hydrogen via
oxygenic pathways following direct photolysis and/ or indirect photol­
ysis mechanistic pathways. They concluded that microalgae can be
efficient in wastewater treatment with cost-effective hydrogen produc­
tion. Implementation of advancement strategies such as bioprocess en­
gineering, selection of suitable pretreatment methods, use of
photosystem inhibitors, O2, scavengers, supplementations, co-culturing,
and genetic modification of strains could improve the direct production
of hydrogen (~56%) with reduction of overall production cost.
2.5. Bioconversion of agro-industrial residues to hydrogen
Lignocellulosic biomass is the most abundant, available and cheap
bioresource on Earth. For the most part, lignocellulosic biomass is
available in the form of agricultural and forest residues, aquatic plants,
and crops wastes, which have huge potential for commodity chemicals
and fuels generation through thermochemical or biotechnological ap­
proaches. Agricultural residues such as rice straw, bagasse, wheat straw,
cotton stalk, and rice husk could be used for energy conversion pro­
cesses. For example, Sivaramakrishnan et al. (2021) used biologically-
pretreated rice bran for anaerobic hydrogen production using Rhizopus
oligosporus MTCC 556 strain. They documented that biological pre­
treatment using Rhizopus could effectively reduce the 38% lignin
Preface
content of rice bran in five days. Furthermore, fermentation of nutrient-
free pretreated rice bran in the presence of yeast and vitamins effectively
enhanced the hydrogen yield by 1.7-fold to 5.4 mmol H2/g.
2.6. Thermochemical conversion of biomass
Gasification is another most promising technology for converting the
organic waste stream into valuable chemicals and gaseous products at
high temperature (700–900 ◦ C). For example, syngas can be easily
produced during pyrolysis and gasification mainly consisting of varying
concentration of hydrogen, methane, carbon dioxide, and carbon mon­
oxide depending upon the feedstock used, reaction temperature, time,
catalyst concentration, atmosphere, etc. Food waste is in rich in the
organic fraction and could serve for biohydrogen production following
either biotechnological or catalytic approaches. Valizadeh et al. (2021)
firstly studied the catalytic route of biohydrogen production from waste
food via steam and air gasification. Although various transition metals
such as Pt, Ru, Rh have been demonstrated for catalytic transformation,
they prepared less expensive Nickel–alumina-based catalyst (5% Ni/
Al2O3) over cheap eggshell and Ni/Homo Alumina and performed steam
and air-assisted gasification of food waste for biohydrogen production.
Nickel–alumina-based catalyst retains its mechanical and thermal sta­
bility and possess a high active surface area for reaction. Interestingly,
steam gasification produced higher hydrogen (59.48 vol% H2)
compared to air gasification. They found that the nickel eggshell catalyst
showed high selectivity and stability during high hydrogen production
with reduced C2-C4 products compared to non-catalyzed steam
gasification.
Foong et al. (2021) reviewed different thermal conversion pathways
such as pyrolysis, gasification, and reforming for hydrogen and gaseous
fuel production. The authors have provided an overview of recent
advancement in pyrolysis technology, CO2 pyrolysis, steam reforming,
and process parameters, emphasizing reaction kinetics for further
improvement in the commercial production of waste-based hydrogen
and gaseous fuels. CO2 pyrolysis is a new concept to unlock new op­
portunities for young researchers to further enhance pyrolysis perfor­
mance and efficiency for CO2 to fuel establishment.
2.7. Integrated biorefinery concept
Acidogenic fermentation of effluents is highly promising for bio­
hydrogen, and short-chain fatty acid productions under two stages such
as bioelectrochemical system or via photofermentative process. Rajesh
Banu et al. (2021) showed that nearly 60% of fermentative effluents
might be utilized directly or indirectly to generate 1,3–propanediol and
organic acids. They reviewed and showed that an integrated biorefinery
approach could significantly address the emergence of integrated dark
fermentation, microbial fuels cells and anaerobic digestion process for
cost-effective production of hydrogen. Integrated biohydrogen produc­
tion is preferred towards achieving a high hydrogen economy and
environmental sustainability. They showed that an integrated bio­
refinery could yield 24–45 €/tCODfed compared to individual processes.
The critical study obtained higher positive gains by integrating direct
fermentation-microbial electrolysis cells (DF–MFC) with complete uti­
lization of organics. The DF–MFC integrated system could produce high
energy content hydrogen (0.1 MJ/kgVS) and methane (8.82–13.9 MJ/
kgVS) (Suksong et al., 2015).
2.8. Technical, economic, and environmental feasibility
Techno-economic analysis of different biohydrogen production
pathways such as dark fermentation, gasification, pyrolysis, steam
reforming, water electrolysis, and renewable liquid reforming could
promote the renewable biohydrogen energy society in the near future. In
this respect, Yukesh Kannah et al. (2021) reviewed the sensitivity
analysis and reviewed production factors such as feedstock and capital
4
Bioresource Technology 331 (2021) 125024
Table 1
Hydrogen production cost from different strategies.
Hydrogen production platforms Production cost
Photobiolysis 1.84–2.27 USD/kg H2
Dark fermentation 1.02–2.70 USD/kg H2
Gasification 0.93–2.83 USD/kg H2
Pyrolysis 1.47–2.57 USD/kg H2
Steam reforming 1.25–3.50 USD/kg H2
Waster electrolysis 3.01–4.51 USD/kg H2
costs of different hydrogen production strategies. They showed that
natural gas steam reforming is highly favored due to high hydrogen
efficiency (70–85%) with reduced operational cost, feedstock (0.3 USD/
kg H2), and production cost (1.25–3.50 USD/kg H2) as summarized in
Table 1.
3. Conclusions
Renewable biohydrogen is a carbon-free energy carrier that can
facilitate decarbonization of certain carbon-emitting activities as an
alternative to fossils fuels. There has been highly interesting de­
velopments in various domains of R&D, leading to technological
advancement on biohydrogen production, which have been nicely
covered in this special issue. The insights of these articles will illuminate
the various approaches considered for economic and sustainable bio­
hydrogen production from readily available cheap bioresources such as
lignocellulosic biomass, microalgae, industrial effluents, wastewater,
food wastes, and the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, which is
expected to make a massive impact in the field.
Acknowledgements
We warmly thank all the authors and co-authors who submitted their
manuscripts to this special issue (SI) of Bioresource Technology (BITE).
The accepted manuscripts describe many interesting signs of progress in
the production of renewable biohydrogen from organic-rich waste ma­
terials. We are very grateful to all distinguished scientists/reviewers for
their valuable contribution in reviewing the manuscripts in this special
issue, which assured the high technical quality of the manuscripts.
Finally, we sincerely acknowledge the full support of Prof. Ashok Pan­
dey, Editor-in-Chief, Bioresource Technology for his valuable guidance,
encouragement, and assistance to the guest editors in review process and
in assembling this Special Issue. Furthermore, we greatly acknowledge
the full support of the Publishing Editor, Dr. Adam Fraser, Journal
Manager, Leonard Daniel, SI Content Developer, Ms Hannah Zhnag and
the production team of Elsevier to publish this special issue.
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Sang-Hyoun Kima,*, Gopalakrishnan Kumara,b, Wei-Hsin Chenc, Samir
Kumar Khanald
a
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Yonsei University, Seoul
03722, Republic of Korea
b
Institute of Chemistry, Bioscience and Environmental Engineering, Faculty
of Science and Technology, University of Stavanger, Box 8600 Forus, 4036
Stavanger, Norway
c
Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, National Cheng Kung
University, Tainan City 70101, Taiwan
d
Department of Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering, University of
Hawai’i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA
*
Corresponding author at: School of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, College of Engineering, 50 Yonsei Ro, Seodaemun Gu,
Seoul 03722, Republic of Korea.
E-mail address: sanghkim@yonsei.ac.kr (S.-H. Kim).