Wheat-based biorefining strategy for fermentative production and chemical transformations of succinic acid

This contribution aims to provide an overview of various aspects of novel process strategies for biorefineries based on the production of succinic acid (SA) and its transformation into high added‐value derivatives. The focus is on recent developments of a wheat‐based biorefinery entailing upstream processing strategies to convert low cost raw materials into fermentable sugars as well as on key insights into the improvement of SA production (e.g. strain development, fermentation kinetics, and fermentation optimization). The incorporation of these processes in future biorefineries for the production of value‐added products and fuels will undoubtedly be an important contribution to the world's highest priority target of sustainable development. © 2011 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd