Biomass is currently the most widespread form of renewable energy and its exploitation is further increasing due to the concerns over the devastative impacts of fossil fuel consumption, i.e., climate change, global warming and their negative impacts on human health. In line with that, the present articles reviews the different sources of biomass available, along with their chemical composition and properties. Subsequently, different conversion technologies (i.e., thermo-chemical, biochemical, and physico-chemical conversions) and their corresponding products are reviewed and discussed. In the continuation, the global status of biomass vs. the other renewable energies is scrutinized. Moreover, biomass-derived energy production was analyzed from economic and environmental perspectives. Finally, the challenges faced to further expand the share of biomass-derived energy carriers in the global energy market are presented.

Although the discovery of plastic in the last century has brought enormous benefits to daily activities, it must be said that its use produces countless environmental problems that are difficult to solve.

The aim of this study is to examine the efficiency of biobased Spanish broom (SB) surface modified cellulose fibers to remove bisphenol A (BPA), a well-known endocrine disruptor, from water. Spanish brooms are flowering plants, which are native and abundant to Mediterranean regions. The functionalized fibers (FF) were found to have the best adsorption efficiency at pH 5, due to the optimal hydrophobic interaction between the FF fiber and BPA. Adsorption kinetics of BPA was found to fit well a pseudo-second order reaction. Equilibrium isotherm data were fitted by Langmuir and Freundlich models. A very fast and simple regeneration method was developed and it was observed that adsorption capacity of the fibers was kept almost unchanged after 3 consecutive uses. Bottled water and synthetic wastewater were also tested to assess the efficiency of the process under more realistic water and wastewater treatment conditions. It was found that BPA removal was slightly decreased from 77% in ultrapure water to 64% in synthetic wastewater matrix, indicating that FF has a high selectivity toward BPA, even in the presence of other organic compounds. Overall, it was observed that SB-modified fibers can be a new promising green biotechnology for water purification.

Fabrics obtained from cellulose spinning, extracted from Spanish broom, were coated with TiO₂ film, through the low pressure plasma sputtering technique, in order to get antibacterial activity. The obtained fabrics were used for the photocatalytic degradation of Escherichia coli, by irradiation with UV-light emitting diodes (UV-LED), in a batch photocatalytic reactor. Before and after functionalization treatments, cellulosic substrates were chemically characterized by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analyses. Water Contact Angle (WCA) measurements allowed obtaining information about the hydrophilicity of the materials, while their antibacterial efficiency was determined at several initial concentrations (from 10³ up to 10⁸ CFU mL⁻¹) of bacteria in distilled water, bottled water and synthetic wastewater. It was found that photocatalytic reactions were capable of achieving up to 100% bacterial inactivation in 1 h of treatment, following a pseudo-first order kinetic model. No bacterial regrowth was observed after photocatalytic treatments in almost all experimental conditions. In contrast, during photolytic treatment (i.e. in the absence of the TiO₂ coated fabrics) bacteria recovered their initial concentration after 3 h in the dark. Finally, the reusability of the plasma modified fibers to inactivate bacteria was studied.

In the present work, we proved the efficacy of cellulose citrate to remove methylene blue (MB) from artificially contaminated water. MB is a widely used dye, but because of its chemical aromatic structure, it is significantly stable with quite slow biodegradation, causing consequent serious health problems for people and significant environmental pollution. Cellulose citrate, the bio-adsorbent proposed and studied by us to remediate water polluted by MB, is produced by a green, cheap and fast procedure that makes use of two abundant natural products, cellulose and citric acid. The average of two citrate groups for each glucose unit of cellulose chains allows this material to have many carboxylic groups available for interaction with the cationic dye. The characterization was carried out through FT-IR, SEM, specific surface area, pore structure parameters and zeta potential. The negative value of the zeta potential at neutral pH is consistent with the affinity of this material for the adsorption of cationic compounds like MB. The activity of the adsorbent at different times, temperatures, pH and concentrations was investigated. The process followed monolayer adsorption typical of the Langmuir model, with a maximum adsorption capacity of 96.2 mg g⁻¹, while for the kinetic studies the process followed a pseudo-second order model. The highest levels of adsorption were reported using solutions of dye with concentrations under 100 mg L⁻¹. The adsorbent can be regenerated several times without a significant loss in the adsorption capacity, and it is not strongly affected by temperature and pH, giving rise to a simple and eco-sustainable procedure for water remediation. Therefore, we conclude that cellulose citrate can be considered as a promising bio-adsorbent for the removal of MB and other cationic pollutants from the environment.