Editorial:

Abstract

The use of microbial bioreactors has harnessed immense attention to support many of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals where this innovative platform provides crucial insights into unlocking a diversity of solutions to society ranging from fundamental research to hydrocarbon purification (Ghosh et al., 2023) and living lab demonstrations (O’Neill et al., 2022). Bioreactor-based solutions have desirable qualities such as safety compliance, scalability, non-toxicity, proven culture-based processes, and ease of operation (Rowan and Galanakis, 2020). There has been a growing interest in the progress of bioreactors to improve supply chains, enabling circularity (the bioeconomy) and food sustainability, along with the potential of using bio-based properties from food and waste products, which is aligned with the “One- Health” concept and digitalization (O’Neill et al., 2022; Rowan et al., 2022). The creative use of bioreactors can also be exploited as a novel toolbox approach for informing and modeling the potential impact of climate change variance on aquatic ecosystems, including testing new green innovation aligned with biodiversity (O’Neill et al., 2022). In recent years, researchers have adopted bioreactor-based cultivation methods to utilize microbial biomass for social advantages (O’Neill et al., 2022). Overall, the manuscripts presented in this Research Topic provided significant paradigms for the usage of bioreactors (Figure 1), which will benefit academia, bioreactor manufacturers, cultivation technologists, small–mid-sized enterprises (SMEs), and factory technicians.