Global issues such as environmental problems and food security are currently of concern to all of us. Circular bioeconomy is a promising approach towards resolving these global issues. The production of bioenergy and biomaterials can sustain the energy–environment nexus as well as substitute the devoid of petroleum as the production feedstock, thereby contributing to a cleaner and low carbon environment. In addition, assimilation of waste into bioprocesses for the production of useful products and metabolites lead towards a sustainable circular bioeconomy. This review aims to highlight the waste biorefinery as a sustainable bio-based circular economy, and, therefore, promoting a greener environment. Several case studies on the bioprocesses utilising waste for biopolymers and bio-lipids production as well as bioprocesses incorporated with wastewater treatment are well discussed. The strategy of waste biorefinery integrated with circular bioeconomy in the perspectives of unravelling the global issues can help to tackle carbon management and greenhouse gas emissions. A waste biorefinery–circular bioeconomy strategy represents a low carbon economy by reducing greenhouse gases footprint, and holds great prospects for a sustainable and greener world.

Being biodegradable and renewable, polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs), a green polymer, attract much attentions as potential alternative for conventional plastics due to increased concern towards environmental issue and resource depletion. However, PHAs not only have suffered some economic disadvantages on the market, and its environmental-friendliness has also been questioned as well. Therefore, there is a growing demand to improve both economic and environmental performances of PHAs production, especially at earlier stage of the process where there are plenty of opportunities and the modification cost is cheap. Therefore, a preliminary integrated assessment is introduced to provide a rapid evaluation for PHAs biosynthesis at R&D stage by coupling material cost analysis together with lifecycle assessment. Using fuzzy approach multi-objective optimization, crude glycerol is the most optimum substrate for biopolymer productions from Cupriavidus necator. The insight from sensitivity analysis has showed that the integrated assessment is sensitive to fluctuation in price and yield of substrate, while maintaining its robustness as similar result is obtained when using different multi-objective optimization tools. Providing some novel insights on PHAs biosynthesis like performance and site selection influencing factor, the integrated assessment can be used to facilitate screening for large-scale production of PHAs.

Oleaginous algae are nowadays of significance for industrial biotechnology applications and for the welfare of society. Tremendous efforts have been put into the development of economically feasible and effective downstream processing techniques in algae research. Currently, Liquid Biphasic Systems (LBSs) are receiving much attention from academia and industry for their potential as green and effective downstream processing methods. This article serves to review the applications of LBSs (LBS and Liquid Biphasic Flotation System (LBFS)) in the separation, recovery and purification of algae products, as well as their basic working principles. Moreover, cell disruptive technologies incorporated into LBSs in algae research are reported. This review provides insights into the downstream processing in algae industrial biotechnology which could be beneficial for algae biorefinement.