The event is structured into two main sections being “Valorization of Organic Residues: Production of Biogas from Sludge and Greenhouse Residues” and “Xenobiotics Removal in Wastewater Treatmen Plant”.

Biogas production from activated sludge is an old and almost established process. Recently, biogas has been produced on an industrial scale from municipal solid waste (MSW) and some homogeneous wastes such as manures. Forestry and agriculture residues and MSW are by nature heterogeneous in size, composition, structure, and properties. But non-biodegredable fractions of agricultural residues such as lignocelluloses and keratin make them difficult to degrade. Pretreatment by physical, chemical or biological means is a well-investigated process for ethanol production from lignocellulosic materials. Furthermore, there have been some efforts to pretreat waste materials for biogas production. The pretreatment can enhance the bio-digestibility of the wastes for ethanol and biogas production and increase accessibility of the enzymes to the materials. It results in enrichment of the difficult biodegradable materials, and improves the yield of biogas.

On the other hand xenobiotic substances are man-made toxic organic chemicals which do not exist in nature. A release of a xenobiotic compounds to the environment effect biological life, and during its lifetime, various organisms will be exposed to the compound. In order to perceive these one must consider transport, persistence, and bioavailability of the compound. With certain chemical and physical properties of a persistent chemical, even a point source release can result in a worldwide distribution, and hence a local environmental problem suddenly becomes global.

On this way biogas production combined with pretreatment and xenobiotics are two important subjects for energy bottleneck, environment and human health. For this reason, BioPXenoR organized as two-day workshop 6-7 October in Antalya, which focused on the biogas production from organic residues (waste sludge and greenhouse residue) and xenobiotic removal in wastewater treatment plant. Main scope of workshop is ensured knowledge sharing about biogas production from organic residues and xenobiotic removal in wastewater treatment plant with experts, young researchers (graduate and postgraduate), participants from industrial and state company, encourage further collobrations between participants and also provide solution(s) for current problems which include xenobiotics and organic residues.