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Preface

There is a continuous worldwide growth in population which consequently leads to a proliferation of industrial and agricultural activities and a growth in the annual consumption of energy, food, water and different agricultural crops, as well as an upturn of global warming and the produced solid wastes. These come with the depletion of fossil fuel reserves, in addition to the worldwide massive water scarcity problem and issues related to climate change, besides the enormous air, soil and water pollution. Further, solid waste management (SWM) is considered nowadays as a critical public issue because of the negative impact of such wastes on the environment, climate, ecosystem, biodiversity and human health.

The main concern worldwide nowadays is how to achieve the seventeen goals of sustainable development (SDGs) for: (1) attaining water and food security for all, (2) saving life on land and under water, (3) assuring the presence of clean and renewable energy, (4) overcoming poverty, (5) securing decent work as much as it could be for all, (6) diminishing the problem of climate change, (7) guaranteeing growth in innovation, the economy and different industrial sectors, (8) increasing awareness of the concept of a circular economy for ensuring responsible sustainable consumption and production patterns.

This book reports some of the global researchers’ activities on the nexus of biofuels, biorefineries, sustainable energy, environment, climate change, water, health, and the economy. It focuses on the occurred positive impacts on air, water, land use, food, society, and economy via the valorization of different available resources into sustainable biofuels and bio-products.

The chapters are: Chapter 1-An Overview of Electro-Fermentation as a Platform for Future Biorefineries; Chapter 2-Biodiesel Sustainability: Challenges and Perspectives; Chapter 3-Multidisciplinary Sides of Environmental Engineering and Sustainability; Chapter 4-Biofuels; Chapter 5-Sustainable Valorization of Waste Cooking Oil into Biofuels and Green Chemicals: Recent Trends, Opportunities and Challenges; Chapter 6-Waste Valorization: Physical, Chemical, and Biological Routes; Chapter 7-Electrocoagulation Process in the Treatment of Landfill Leachate; Chapter 8-Sustainable Solutions for Environmental Pollutants from Solid Waste Landfills; Chapter 9-Progress on Ionic Liquid Pre-Treatment for Lignocellulosic Biomass Valorization into Biofuels and Bio-Products; Chapter 10-Septage Characterization and Sustainable Fecal Sludge Management in Rural Nablus, Palestine; Chapter 11-Lipase Catalyzed Reactions: A Promising Approach for Clean Synthesis of Oleochemicals; Chapter 12-Seaweeds for Sustainable Development.

Thus, this book addresses the different multidisciplinary sides of environmental and sustainable development engineering which is a subsystem of sustainable development using system theory and its related integrated system approach. It provides a state-of-the-art presentation on how to reach a sustainable and clean environment via waste management and valorization of different readily available resources into biofuels, biorefineries and different value-added products. It discusses the challenges and opportunities for enlarging the world markets of biofuels, biorefineries and bio-products and how countries can set up policies to decrease fossil fuel dependency and petro-based synthesis of commodity chemicals and move steadily towards the bio-based economy. The utilization of renewable resources such as seaweeds and waste biomass is often considered as an attractive candidate for biofuels and different bioproducts. However, limitations regarding the robustness of process and selectivity of target products are often considered bottlenecks to their sustainable commercialization. This book discusses such bottlenecks and suggests many feasible applicable techniques to increase the yield of the targeted bioproducts. For achieving the circular economy with the concept of zero-wastes, this book discusses the production of bioethanol from different lignocellulosic wastes and seaweeds and also the production of biodiesel from waste oils and fats using sustainable heterogeneous catalysts. Further, it explains how to reach for a feasible transesterification process that produces high yield of qualified biodiesel to be successfully used as alternative and/or complementary for the conventional petro-diesel without affecting the engine performance. The book also debates how the applications of heterogeneous catalysts valorized from different readily available natural resources would be very beneficial in the production of biodiesel and bioglycerol. It also states the applicability of lipases in production of biodiesel and oleochemicals. The use of ionic liquids (ILs) in the lignocellulosic wastes pretreatment for further use in bioethanol and other biorefineries production has gained considerable attention in this book.

It also clarifies how solid waste management can in general open a new sustainable revolution in different sectors which would indeed lead to the successful achievement of the three pillars of sustainability, social, environment and economic. Special attention is given to valorization as a technical route adopted for the recycling of waste into desirable products having non-toxic economic worth. Moreover, the valorization of different available bio-wastes into different biofuels and value-added products, for example, glycerol, oleochemicals, bioplastics, biopolymers, biofertilizers, animal feed, etc., with the concept of reaching zero-waste is discussed from the perspective of achieving the seventeen goals of sustainability, and overcoming the problems of water scarcity, waste management and climate change.

One of the most important sectors this book covers is the main environmental problems related to landfills including soil, water and air contamination, and it also highlights and discusses some of the sustainable solutions and management for such problems including landfill design and location, leachate management and treatment, gas and emission control. Moreover, the effect of unsuitable locations of landfills on the environment is discussed and evaluated. This book also goes through optimizing the treatment of landfill leachate for minimizing its adverse impacts on the natural ecosystem as it is an urgent concern with the increased municipal solid wastes. It emphasizes on the promising electrocoagulation process for its outstanding ability in decontaminating leachate pollution in an economic, viabile, and green approach. A case study for septage characterization and sustainable fecal sludge management has been also reported in this book.

The multidisciplinary approach discussed in this book extends the different scientific and engineering disciplines to reach all other disciplines including economics, politics and other social sciences. Thus, it is time for engineers, scientists, medical doctors, economists, politicians, military officers and specialists, etc., to join forces in multidisciplinary research and development projects to achieve sustainability for better, stable, peaceful, non-sectarian, prosperous and more clean and sustainable societies.

Nour Sh. El-Gendy