Biotech green approaches to unravel the potential of residues into valuable products

A sustainable and rational use of the existing resources with limited generation of residues and using environmentally-friendly processes is a current concern that is being addressed under the concepts of green chemistry and circular economy. Biotechnological processes, namely the use of microorganisms and/or enzymes to cost-efficiently produce and convert renewable biological resources and waste streams into valuable products across several economic sectors (such as food, feed, bio-based products and bioenergy) comprise a powerful alternative. The so-called circular bioeconomy is currently taking advantage of the recent developments in omics techniques, gene editing, systems and synthetic biology, as well as of the novel technological developments of bioreactors and downstream processes. In addition, the potential of many existing residues from different sources, which remain to be mapped and thoroughly characterized, is largely unexplored and represents a great opportunity to design new products and processes, hence a great opportunity for the economy, environment and ultimately for the society.C.A. and A.C. acknowledge their grants (UMINHO/BPD/4/2019 and UMINHO/BPD/37/2018, respectively) from Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). The study received financial support from FCT under the scope of the strategic funding of UID/BIO/04469/2013 unit, COMPETE 2020 (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-006684), and the projects FoSynBio (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029549) and Lignozymes (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029773). The authors also acknowledge BioTecNorte operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004) and the project MultiBiorefinery (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016403) funded by the European Regional Development Fund under the scope of Norte2020—Programa Operacional Regional do Norte.