Engineered Artificial Minerals (EnAMs): A Geo-Metallurgical Tool to Recycle Critical Elements from Waste Streams: Synthesis, Characterization, Metallurgical and Mechanical Processing (SPP 2315)

Dear Colleagues,

The central purpose of this Special Issue is to communicate a wide range of research related to the priority programme SPP 2315 Engineered Artificial Minerals (EnAMs). The programme addresses the slag phase of pyrometallurgical processes as an important source for critical technology elements. When slag solidifies, it either forms a homogeneous amorphous structure or generates crystals. These crystals are be seen as artificial minerals (EnAMs) or ores, and their generation is considered to concentrate diluted elements by orders of magnitude. The SPP 2315 looks at Li-, Ta-, or Cr-containing slag systems. The formation of EnAMs itself depends on the thermodynamics of the complex multicomponent slag system and the processing conditions of the melt, e.g., the temperature profile and gradient during solidification.

The core of the programme includes 18 individual projects at various departments of German universities and research institutes in the fields of process engineering, metallurgy, stochastics, organic chemistry, geochemistry, and thermodynamics.

The idea behind this programme is that the recycling industry currently mainly focuses on recovering the main bulk materials, which leads to the under-recognition and loss of metals essential for advanced technological functions in waste streams, such as Ta and Li incorporated into building materials, Nd and Dy dissolved in iron-based construction materials, and Pd dispersed as dust across various process streams. Consequently, this results in downcycling and the depletion of valuable chemical species, since these species are trapped and lost in the slag structures.

The Engineered Artificial Minerals (EnAMs) concept facilitates the selective concentration and recovery of specific elements from small-scale components and multimaterial composites. With regard to metallurgical processing, where the target element is transferred to slag, this involves an additional two-stage strategy: first, integrating the target element into an artificial mineral phase during pyrometallurgical treatment, and second, liberating and separating this mineral from slag. Understanding and quantifying these processes rely on the in situ monitoring and multidimensional analysis of the EnAMs’ structure.

A holistic approach requires an integrated model and simulation, developing new process models to create digital twins of related processes. This involves an enhanced entropy concept to describe material flows' mixture and structure quantitatively. The approach combines particle and thermochemical metallurgy processes into a digital tool to estimate recycling efforts and link to economic, ecological, and life-cycle assessment models, enabling predictive simulations to find the most efficient recycling concept for each element.

Prof. Dr. Urs Alexander Peuker
Prof. Dr. Bernd Friedrich
Prof. Dr. Ursula Elisabeth Adriane Fittschen
Prof. Dr. Sandra Breitung-Faes
Guest Editors

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Publisher’s Notice

As stated above, the central purpose of this Special Issue is to present research from "Engineered Artificial Minerals (EnAMs): A Geo-Metallurgical Tool to Recycle Critical Elements from Waste Streams: Synthesis, Characterization, Metallurgical and Mechanical Processing (SPP 2315)". Given this purpose, the Guest Editors’ contribution to this Special Issue may be greater than standard Special Issues published by MDPI. Further details on MDPI's Special Issue guidelines can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/special_issues_guidelines. The Editorial Office and Editor-in-Chief of Minerals has approved this and MDPI’s standard manuscript editorial processing procedure (https://www.mdpi.com/editorial_process) will be applied to all submissions. As per our standard procedure, Guest Editors are excluded from participating in the editorial process for their submission and/or for submissions from persons with whom a potential conflict of interest may exist. More details on MDPI’s Conflict of Interest policy for reviewers and editors can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/ethics#_bookmark22.