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Comptes Rendus
Chimie
Mejdi Jeguirim, Salah Jellali and Besma Khiari
Foreword: Recent Advances in Sustainable Biomass Valorization
Volume 25, Special Issue S2 (2022), p. 1-5
Published online: 4 August 2022
https://doi.org/10.5802/crchim.190
Part of Special Issue: Sustainable Biomass Resources for Environmental,
Agronomic, Biomaterials and Energy Applications 3
Guest editors:Mejdi Jeguirim (Université de Haute-Alsace, Institut de Sciences
des Matériaux de Mulhouse, France), Salah Jellali (Sultan Qaboos University,
Oman) and Besma Khiari (Centre of Water Researches and Technologies, Tunisia)
This article is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Les Comptes Rendus. Chimie sont membres du
Centre Mersenne pour l’édition scientifique ouverte
www.centre-mersenne.org
e-ISSN : 1878-1543
Comptes Rendus
Chimie
2022, Vol. 25, Special Issue S2, p. 1-5
https://doi.org/10.5802/crchim.190
Foreword: Recent Advances in Sustainable Biomass
Valorization
Avant-propos : Récentes Avancées dans la Valorisation Durable
de la Biomasse
Mejdi Jeguirim∗, a, Salah Jellalib and Besma Khiaric
a Institut de Science des Matériaux de Mulhouse, Université de Haute Alsace,
Université de Strasbourg, France
b Centre for Environmental Studies and Research, Sultan Qaboos University, Oman
c Wastewaters and Environment Laboratory, Water Research and Technologies
Centre, Tunisia
E-mails: mejdi.jeguirim@uha.fr (M. Jegurim), s.jelali@squ.edu.om (S. Jellali),
besmakhiari@yahoo.com (B. Khiari)
Published online: 4 August 2022
Huge amounts of biomasses are annually gener-
ated in the world by several sectors including agri-
culture, industry, tourism etc. The sustainable man-
agement of these organic wastes has been pointed
out as an urgent challenge to be urgently taken into
consideration in order to avoid any negative effects
onto human health and environment and to dis-
pose of a supplementary resource that can be val-
orized in several domains. Indeed, some biomasses
have high volatile matter contents allowing them to
be used as a source for renewable energy extrac-
tion. Other biomasses contain high contents of valu-
able nutrients that can be used as low cost and eco-
friendly biofertilizers in agriculture instead of syn-
thetic fertilizers. Besides, some treated biomasses
∗Corresponding author.
could exhibit promising properties permitting them
to act as efficient adsorbents for pollutants removal
from aqueous and gaseous effluents. Finally, some
specific biomasses have interesting physical, chemi-
cal and biological properties allowing them to be pre-
cious source of various biomaterials.
In this context, the current special issue entitled:
“Sustainable Biomass Resources for Environmen-
tal, Agronomic, Biomaterials and Energy Applica-
tions 3” aims to collect the most recent scientific
works related to biomasses sustainable management
and valorization in the domain of energy, agricul-
ture, environment and biotechnology. This special is-
sue aims to contribute to the international efforts
deployed in order to make progress in the achieve-
ment of several related worldwide initiatives such
as: “2030 United Nations Sustainable Development
Goals” (UN-SDGs), the “4 per 1000” aiming to boost
ISSN (electronic) : 1878-1543 https://comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/chimie/
2 Mejdi Jeguirim et al.
the annual carbon storage in agricultural soils by
0.4%, the “Greenhouse Gas Emissions reduction” as
recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC).
This special issue contains 10 peer-reviewed pa-
pers dealing with the valorization of several types of
biomasses in various domains including energy, en-
vironment, and biotechnology.
The first paper is entitled: “Pharmaceutical pollu-
tants adsorption onto activated carbon: isotherm,
kinetic investigations and DFT modeling ap-
proaches” [1]. In this work, the removal of phar-
maceutical pollutants, i.e., oxytetracycline (OTC) was
studied through adsorption onto activated carbon
(ACT) produced from households or agricultural
wastes under various experimental conditions. The
physicochemical properties of the produced carbon
were investigated using multiple techniques. The
characterization analysis highlighted an essential
concentration of surface functional groups and a
very developed porous structure. The adsorption
process onto activated carbon occurs with a high
yield at a large range of pH values varying between 4
and 8 at an optimum contact time of 2 h. It was estab-
lished that the pseudo-second-order kinetic model
fitted well OTC adsorption onto ACT. Moreover, the
adsorption isotherm data showed that the pollutant
removal process followed the Langmuir model with
high regression coefficients (R2) values and impor-
tant adsorption efficiency of 80% for 100 mg·L−1 of
OTC. Consequently, the use of ACT could be con-
sidered an efficient, sustainable, and low-cost al-
ternative for pharmaceuticals-loaded wastewater
treatment.
The second paper is entitled: “Competitive bio-
sorption of basic dyes onto petiole palm tree wastes
in single and binary systems” [2]. This work aimed to
study petiole palm tree wastes (PTW) efficiency in re-
moving two basic dyes: Rhodamine B (RB) and Vic-
toria blue B (VBB) from aqueous solutions in single
and binary systems under various experimental con-
ditions including the effect of contact time, pH, ini-
tial concentration, and temperature. The PTW char-
acterization shows that the PTW is a lingo-cellulosic
material. The experimental results indicate that the
removal of both dyes was relatively fast, sponta-
neous, exothermic and occurred on monolayers.
Moreover, the adsorption competition between these
two dyes on the adsorbent particles surface was im-
portant since the Langmuir’s adsorption capacities
were evaluated to 260.1; 440.1; 168.0; and 417.4 mg/g
for RB and VBB in single and binary systems, re-
spectively. These adsorption capacities, even in bi-
nary systems, are interesting compared to other raw
materials and prove that this abundant agricultural
waste can be considered as a promising material
for an efficient dyes removal from aqueous efflu-
ents.
The third paper is entitled: “Industrial dye removal
from tannery wastewater by using biochar produced
from tannery fleshing waste: a road to circular econ-
omy” [3]. In this study, the capacity of biochars, de-
rived from the pyrolysis of tannery fleshing waste
(TFW) at 400 °C; 500 °C and 600 °C, in removal of
red dye Sella Fast Red (SFR) from aqueous solutions
and tannery wastewater was investigated under var-
ious experimental conditions in batch mode. Results
show that for all applied biochars, the removed kinet-
ics data were well fitted by the pseudo-second-order
model, and the equilibrium state was obtained after
240 min of contact time. For an aqueous pH of 6 and
a red dye concentration of 75 mg·L−1, the removed
amounts increased from 26 mg·g−1 to 39.86 mg·g−1
when the used pyrolysis temperature was increased
from 400 °C to 600 °C. Moreover, SFR adsorption data
at equilibrium were well fitted by Langmuir model
suggesting a probable monolayer adsorption pro-
cess with a maximal removal capacity of 62.7 mg·g−1
for BTFW-600 °C. The thermodynamic study demon-
strated that SFR adsorption was endothermic for the
three tested biochars. Desorption experiments with
distilled water proved that SFR was significantly des-
orbed from the tested biochars, which offers pos-
sible reusability. On the other hand, BTFW-600 °C
has demonstrated an important ability in removing
SFR from real wastewater since only one dosage of
15 g·L−1 was enough to ensure more than 97% of
dye removal. According to pHZC and FTIR analysis,
the possible mechanism toward SFR dye removal was
attributed to electrostatic interactions that occurred
between biochar and functional groups of SFR. This
work could provide guidance for the value-added uti-
lization of tannery solid waste and a practical way to
remove dyes from tannery wastewater.
The fourth paper is entitled: “Cationic dye re-
moval using Pergularia Tomentosa L. fruit: kinetics
and isotherm characteristics using classical and ad-
vanced models” [4]. In this study, different techniques
Mejdi Jeguirim et al. 3
were used to characterize the powdered pergularia
tomentosa fruit. After that, the biomaterial was ex-
ploited to investigate the adsorption of methylene
blue in batch mode. The effects of initial pH, contact
time, dye concentration, biosorbent dose, and tem-
perature on the biosorption capacity have been per-
formed. The fit of the adsorption isotherms was per-
formed by means of several classical models and ad-
vanced models derived from statistical physics. The
two-energy monolayer model proves to be the more
suitable. It appears that two functional groups of
the biosorbent are involved in the dye biosorption.
The adsorption energy ranges from 14 to 18 kJ·mol−1
which indicates a physiosorption mechanism. The
maximum adsorption capacity is 152 mg·g−1. Per-
gularia tomentosa fruit proves to be attractive for
the efficient removal of cationic dyes from polluted
water.
The fifth paper is entitled: “Investigations on
potential Tunisian biomasses energetic valoriza-
tion: thermogravimetric characterization and ki-
netic degradation analysis” [5]. During this work,
six Tunisian local biomasses, namely ziziphus wood
(ZW), almond shells (AS), olive stones (OS), vine
stems (VS) and date palm leaflets (DPL) and trunks
(DPT) were slowly pyrolyzed under inert atmosphere
at a heating rate of 5 °C/min through thermogravi-
metric (TG) analyses. The thermal degradation of
samples involves the interaction in a porous media
of heat, mass and momentum transfer with chemical
reactions. Heat is transported by conduction, con-
vection and radiation and, mass transfer is driven
by pressure and concentration gradients. Thermal
degradation curves have been studied with minute
details for each degradation step. The Coats–Redfern
model was used to extract the kinetic parameters
from the TG data, then the kinetic parameters such
as the activation energy, the pre-exponential factor
and the order of the reaction were calculated. Results
showed that the total mass losses amounts and kinet-
ics are dependent on the type of the used biomass.
Moreover, the devolatilization could be described
by the first order model, while the char formation
stage was better described by the second and third
order reactions model. The physicochemical char-
acteristics of these samples were also determined.
The volatile matter (VM) content varies consider-
ably, with values ranging from 67.19% for AS to 77.4%
for ZW. The maximum values were obtained for ZW
and VS with values of 77.4% and 71.9%, respectively.
The lowest value (67.19%) was determined for AS.
In addition, the ash contents vary between 0.8% for
OS and 5.66% for DPT. The ashes vary significantly
from one sample to another, with the values be-
ing even lower than 1% for OS, whereas the higher
values in the DPT is 5.66%. Further, activation en-
ergies corresponding to main devolatilization re-
gions were 59.5, 47.0, 55.8, 41.1, 89.1, 45.2 kJ/mol for
ZW, AS, OS, VS, DPL, and DPT respectively. Among
all the tested biomasses, the ZW and VS appear to
have an important potential to be used for energy
production.
The sixth paper is entitled: “D-optimal design
optimization of unsaturated palm fatty acid distil-
late and trimethylolpropane esterification for biol-
ubricant production” [6]. In this work, polyol es-
ter of green biolubricant base oil was synthesized
through the esterification of unsaturated palm fatty
acid distillate (USFA-PFAD) with polyhydric alco-
hol, trimethylolpropane (TMP) in the occurrence of
sulphuric acid catalyst. The optimization process
was conducted by using D-optimal design of the
response surface methodology (RSM). The results
showed that the highest yield percentage of resultant
polyol ester, USFA-TMP ester was obtained at 96.0 ±
0.5% with 99.9 ± 0.9% of tri-ester selectivity. These
were obtained at the esterification optimal condi-
tion at reaction temperature of 150 °C for 6 h with
5% H2SO4. The polyol ester chemical structure was
characterized by using spectroscopy analysis tech-
niques of infrared (FTIR), proton (1H) and carbon
(13C) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The resul-
tant USFA-TMP ester recorded viscosity index of 163,
pour points at −45 °C, flash points at 298 °C, and
thermal oxidative stability temperatures at 215 °C.
It was found that the ester product as a Newtonian
fluid with viscosity grade lubricant ISO VG 46. In
overall, the resultant polyol ester has shown good lu-
brication properties that make it conceivable to be
used for many industrial green biolubricant applica-
tions.
The seventh paper is entitled: “CFD multiphase
combustion modelling of oleic by-products pellets in
a counter-current fixed bed combustor” [7]. In this
research work, a transient two-dimensional multi-
phase model was built to study the combustion of
pellets of oleic by-products (Olive Pits (OPi)) in a
cylindrical counter-current 40 kW fixed bed combus-
4 Mejdi Jeguirim et al.
tor. The fixed bed is modelled as a porous medium,
which is randomly packed with spherical particles of
equal size. A κ− ε model for low Reynolds number
flows was used for turbulence Modelling. Primary
and secondary air injections were supplied at the
bed (solid phase combustion) and at the freeboard
zone (gas phase combustion), respectively. The mass
loss history, the temperature distribution at different
heights inside the reactor and the gas emissions of
CO, CO2, O2, H2, CH4 and Corg were computed. Key
parameters related to the reaction front velocity, the
mass conversion rate and the progress of ignition
were also computed. We show that computational
results are in good agreement with experimental
measurements obtained using a similar reactor fed
with the same pellet types. These results also moti-
vate the implementation of the present formulation
and its extension to industrial scale furnaces, hav-
ing established the results for the comparison with
pilot-scale experiments.
The eighth paper is entitled: “Biohydrogen pro-
duction by Thermotoga maritima from a simplified
medium exclusively composed of onion and natural
seawater” [8]. In this work, biohydrogen production
by the anaerobic hyperthermophilic and halophilic
bacterium, Thermotoga maritima (TM) was con-
ducted using a mixture of Onion Waste Juice (OWJ)
and seawater (SW). The highest production of bio-
hydrogen (H2) with OWJ, as the exclusive source of
carbon and energy, was obtained for an optimum
volume of 50% (v/v), with the highest overall produc-
tivity of biohydrogen (15.6 mM/h) and a maximum
yield of 2.6 (molH2/molHexose). This was mainly due
to the presence of organosulfur compounds and the
natural presence of ammonium contained in OWJ.
The addition of inorganic nitrogen and iron sources
in the mixture of SW and OWJ has improved bio-
hydrogen production, achieving productivity yield
(23.0 mM/h for 3.2 molH2/molHexose) close to the
maximum obtained for TM. Above 600 mL, the high
concentration of substrate (>30 g COD/L) led the
metabolism to deviate towards lactate production at
the expense of H2 production. A fed-batch culture
with the sequential addition of concentrated OWJ
mixed with only sea salt was investigated for the pre-
vention of substrate-associated growth inhibition by
controlling the nutrient supply. The total cumulative
biohydrogen produced was about 300 mM after 30 h
of incubation.
The ninth paper is entitled: “Enhanced transes-
terification of rapeseed oil to biodiesel catalyzed by
KCl/CaO” [9]. In this work, a series of supported solid
based catalysts were prepared by impregnation of
chloride salts over CaO. The catalytic activity of the
prepared catalysts was tested for the transesterifi-
cation reaction of biodiesel from rapeseed oil and
methanol. The KCl/CaO catalyst containing 15% KCl
exhibited the highest catalytic activity after calcina-
tion at 600 °C for 6 h. A reaction optimization study
was carried out using KCl/CaO as catalyst leading to
operation conditions for achieving a 98.3% yield of
fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) at 2.5 h and 65 °C, a
catalyst amount of 10%, and a mole ratio of methanol
to rapeseed oil of 15:1. It was found that the high-
est FAME yield at 2.5 h was faster than that at 6 h
for commercial CaO catalysts under the same reac-
tion conditions. The characterization results showed
that the pore size of CaO particles was greatly im-
proved by the addition of KCl, which facilitated bet-
ter access of the reactive molecules to the active sites
of the catalyst.
The last paper is entitled: “H2-rich syngas pro-
duction by sorption enhanced steam gasification of
palm empty fruit bunch Catalytic” [10]. In this work,
hydrogen-rich syngas from palm empty fruit bunch
has been produced in the presence of CaO and ben-
tonite as absorbent and catalyst, respectively. The
gasification process is carried out at 550–750 °C at at-
mospheric pressure in a fixed bed gasifier with steam
to biomass ratio (S/B) of 0–2.5 and Ca/C ratio of
0–2. The results showed that CaO only acts as CO2
absorber during the process. Increasing the ratio of
Ca/C and S/B have increased the concentration of
H2 and absorption of CO2 in the syngas. The addi-
tion of CaO did not significantly increase the produc-
tion of CH4 and CO in the syngas. The H2 concentra-
tion reaches about 78.16 vol% at 700 °C and Ca/C ra-
tio of 2.
Guest Editors of this special issue are grate-
ful to all the authors for their valuable contribu-
tion and to the reviewers for their comments that
contributed to the quality improvement of the
above-cited accepted papers. Many thanks to the
Editor-in-Chief of Comptes Rendus Chimie, Profes-
sor Pierre Braunstein for renewing his confidence
and support. Special thanks to the entire production
team of the journal for their constructive collabora-
tion.
Mejdi Jeguirim et al. 5
Mejdi Jeguirim
Co-Guest Editor
Institut de Science des Matériaux de Mulhouse
France
mejdi.jeguirim@uha.fr
Salah Jellali
Co-Guest Editor
Sultan Qaboos University
Oman
s.jellali@squ.edu.om
Besma Khiari
Co-Guest Editor
Water Research and Technologies Centre
Tunisia
besmakhiari@yahoo.com
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