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Edible and medicinal mushrooms possess excellent nutritional properties due to their incredible versatility in growing on different substrates and producing extracellular enzymes with a wide range of specificity. These features make them excellent candidates for various biotechnological applications. In this context, biotechnological applications using edible and medicinal mushrooms can focus on the bioprocessing of agro‐industrial wastes, an economical and environmentally friendly strategy. This review, based on recent original research and scientific reviews, highlights the versatility and potential of mushrooms in terms of sustainability and efficiency. We emphasized the biotechnological applications of edible and medicinal mushrooms and their enzymes including food production with high nutraceutical value by enhancing the quality and flavor of food industry products. Other biotechnological applications addressed in this review were cosmeceutical and biomedical development using mushroom extracts with bioactive compounds; wood pulp pretreatment processes in the pulp and paper industry; bioethanol production; and bioremediation for decontaminating soils and polluted effluents. These applications explain how edible and medicinal mushrooms have gained significance in biotechnology over the years, opening new avenues for innovation. The current tendency to study edible and medicinal mushrooms has gained the attention of researchers because these are still less known organisms becoming an attractive and natural source of novel bioactive compounds that could be integrated into a circular model production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

MnNiSi-based alloys, substituted with isostructural Fe2Ge as (MnNiSi)1−x(Fe2Ge)x, were prepared by arc-melting to examine their structural, magnetocaloric, and barocaloric properties. A simultaneous (coupled) first-order magnetic and structural, that is, magnetostructural, transition from a low-temperature ferromagnetic (FM) (TiNiSi-type) orthorhombic phase to a high-temperature paramagnetic (PM) (Ni2In-type) hexagonal phase was observed in all compositions, where $0.33\le x \le0.35$ , by magnetothermal and structural analyses. The magnetostructural transition temperature, $T_{\mathrm {t}}$ , decreased from 350 to 256 K (for $\mu _{0}H= 0.1$ T, on heating) by providing chemical pressure used by increasing the compositional variable, $x$ , to 0.35. However, application of hydrostatic pressure overall decreased both $T_{\mathrm {t}}$ at dT t/ dP ~7.3 K/kbar and thermal hysteresis, $\Delta T_{\mathrm {t}}$ , significantly. Indeed, in the $x= 0.33$ composition, $\Delta T_{\mathrm {t}}$ was drastically reduced by >80% from 30 K at ambient pressure to 5 K at $P= 7.6$ kbar. A maximum magnetic entropy change, $\Delta S_{\mathrm {mag}}$ ($\mu _{0}H= 2$ T), corresponding to $30~J/kg \cdot \mathrm {K} $ is noted at 270 K in (MnNiSi)0.67(Fe2Ge)0.33 at an applied pressure of 7.9 kbar. For the $x= 0.34$ and 0.35 compositions, an application of $P \sim ~8$ kbar resulted in the partial, and complete, decoupling of the magnetic (FM $\to $ PM) and structural (orthogonal $\to $ hexagonal) transitions, respectively, and consequently, a large drop in $\Delta S_{\mathrm {mag}}$. Application of $P= 7.9$ kbar on the $x= 0.35$ composition converted the first-order $T_{\mathrm {t}}$ to the second-order Curie transition, $T_{\mathrm {C}}$ , and therefore loss of the structural transition indicating the stabilization of the high-temperature hexagonal structure. Overall, these features emphasize strong coupling between the magnetic spins and the lattice in MnNiSi-based alloys. Further fundamental and applied insight is obtained concerning pathways for optimizing the multicaloric response of MnNiSi-based alloys with isostructural substitution by Fe2Ge for potential solid-state cooling applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]