Applications of Microbial Consortia for Enhanced Biohydrogen and Biofuel Production

Environmental biotechnology has made major advances in using microbial consortia to produce renewable energy, especially biohydrogen and biofuels. In the past, bioenergy production from organic substrates often suffered from low conversion efficiency and incomplete substrate use when relying on pure cultures. Recent studies show that metabolically compatible mixed communities, including Clostridium, Thermoanaerobacterium, acetogens, and methanogens, can outperform monocultures by combining complementary metabolic pathways and cooperative interactions. Progress in understanding how these consortia function has been accelerated by improved process technologies, such as advanced reactor configurations and the use of biochar as a carrier material to support microbial immobilization, stability, and activity. Despite these advances, key challenges remain in optimization, scalability, and long-term stability, especially across different feedstocks and operating conditions.This Research Topic aims to strengthen the fundamental and applied knowledge needed to unlock the full potential of microbial consortia for enhanced biohydrogen and biofuel production. We will explore how metabolic engineering and process innovations can improve performance. Key questions include how to identify optimal consortia for specific substrate types; how syntrophic interactions, robustness, and resilience emerge and can be maintained; and how laboratory findings can be translated into cost-effective, large-scale processes. We welcome contributions that push forward both mechanistic understanding and practical implementation of consortia-based bioenergy systems. Submissions may include, but are not limited to, the following themes:• Advances in reactor engineering and process optimization for consortia-based bioenergy systems• Strategies for feedstock diversification, valorization of industrial waste, and process sustainability• Insights into interspecies metabolic interactions, network modelling, and resilience mechanisms• Bioaugmentation strategies and performance benchmarking of engineered vs. naturally enriched consortiaPlease note that Microbiotechnology does not consider descriptive studies that are solely based on amplicon (e.g., 16S rRNA) profiles or comparisons of nucleic acid extracts (e.g., metagenomics), unless they are accompanied by a clear hypothesis and experimentation and provide insight into the microbiological system or process being studied. Topic editors: Kian Mau Goh, Sudhir Kumar Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/83019/applications-of-microbial-consortia-for-enhanced-biohydrogen-and-biofuel-production