**Efficient Technology for the Pretreatment of Biomass**

Editors

**Ivet Ferrer Helene Carrere Aline Carvalho Da Costa Cigdem Eskicioglu**

MDPI • Basel • Beijing • Wuhan • Barcelona • Belgrade • Manchester • Tokyo • Cluj • Tianjin

*Editors* Ivet Ferrer Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Universitat Politecnica de ` Catalunya·BarcelonaTech Barcelona Spain

Helene Carrere INRAE, LBE, Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology Montpellier University Narbonne France

Aline Carvalho Da Costa School of Chemical Engineering University of Campinas (UNICAMP) Campinas Brazil

Cigdem Eskicioglu School of Engineering University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus Kelowna Canada

*Editorial Office* MDPI St. Alban-Anlage 66 4052 Basel, Switzerland

This is a reprint of articles from the Special Issue published online in the open access journal *Molecules* (ISSN 1420-3049) (available at: www.mdpi.com/journal/molecules/special issues/pretreatment).

For citation purposes, cite each article independently as indicated on the article page online and as indicated below:

LastName, A.A.; LastName, B.B.; LastName, C.C. Article Title. *Journal Name* **Year**, *Volume Number*, Page Range.

**ISBN 978-3-0365-2391-0 (Hbk) ISBN 978-3-0365-2390-3 (PDF)**

© 2021 by the authors. Articles in this book are Open Access and distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows users to download, copy and build upon published articles, as long as the author and publisher are properly credited, which ensures maximum dissemination and a wider impact of our publications.

The book as a whole is distributed by MDPI under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND.

### **Contents**


Reprinted from: *Molecules* **2018**, *23*, 1300, doi:10.3390/molecules23061300 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . **133**


### **About the Editors**

#### **Ivet Ferrer**

Dr. Ivet Ferrer is a Full Professor at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya·BarcelonaTech. Currently, she leads the Research Group ` of Environmental Engineering and Microbiology (GEMMA-UPC). Her main research topic is the optimization of biomass anaerobic digestion by applying pretreatments and co-digestion. She has also addressed the implementation and assessment of low-tech digesters for rural areas. Her research is now focused on the recovery of resources from waste streams, including high-value bioproducts and biogas.

#### **Helene Carrere**

Dr. Hel´ ene Carr ` ere is an INRAE Research Director. She joined INRAE in 1994 to work ` on separation processes in Microbiology and Food Process Engineering unit. She moved to the Laboratory of Environmental Biotechnology in 2001 where her research activities focus on the study and development of pretreatments to improve the performance of anaerobic digestion and fermentation for the recovery of various feedstocks (e.g., sewage sludge, lignocellulosic biomass, manure, food waste, etc.).

#### **Aline Carvalho Da Costa**

Dr. Aline Carvalho da Costa is an Associate Professor at the School of Chemical Engineering of the University of Campinas and does research in the production of bioproducts and biofuels from renewable sources within the biorefinery concept. Among her main research areas are bioprocess modeling and optimization, as well as first and second generation ethanol production with an emphasis on pre-treatment technologies, enzymatic hydrolysis, and fermentation.

#### **Cigdem Eskicioglu**

Dr. Cigdem Eskicioglu is a Full Professor and NSERC/Metro Vancouver Senior Industrial Research Chair in the area of Resource Recovery from Wastewater in the School of Engineering at University of British Columbia (UBC)'s Okanagan Campus. She is also the Founder/Leader of the Bioreactor Technology Group (BTG), which focuses on advanced wastewater treatment processes for more efficient contaminant removal, energy conservation and production, resource recovery and mitigation of trace contaminants of emerging concern.

### **Preface to "Efficient Technology for the Pretreatment of Biomass"**

Biomass corresponds to organic matter of animal, vegetable, microbial, or algal origin. Biomass use as feedstock for biomaterial, chemicals, platform molecules, biofuel or bioenergy are the most reliable alternatives to limit fossil fuel consumption and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Resource recovery from different kinds of waste, such as sludge, food waste, municipal solid waste, and animal waste (manure and slaughterhouse waste) is particularly interesting from an environmental point of view, as it also reduces environmental pollution. In addition, lignocellulosic biomass and algae, which do not compete for food production, represent an important source of renewable resources (i.e., energy and other value-added products). However, a pretreatment step is generally required before biomass (bio)-conversion into valuable products in order to increase the process yield and/or productivity.

Pretreatments are applied upstream of various conversion processes of biomass into biofuel or biomaterial with valuable end products such as bioethanol, biohydrogen, biomethane, biomolecules or biomaterials. Pretreatments cover a wide range of processes that include mechanical, thermal, chemical and biological techniques. This step is recognized as crucial and cost intensive for the development of biorefineries. Thus, more research is necessary to identify the most effective and economical pretreatment options for different biomass sources.

This Special Issue aims to gather research papers on recent developments of biomass pretreatments for biomaterial, chemicals, biofuel or bioenergy production, in the fields of Chemistry Sciences, Process Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Modeling and Control, Energy and Fuels, and Bioprocesses.

> **Ivet Ferrer, Helene Carrere, Aline Carvalho Da Costa, Cigdem Eskicioglu** *Editors*

*Article*
