Dear Colleagues,

Minerals are often deemed “non-renewable” resources because their primary stock in the earth’s crust is not replenished after extraction on human time scales. However, from a chemical perspective, the question of renewability is intertwined with the level of entropy the specific elements may be in after being made into a product and the energy needed to retrieve the minerals back from that product. In contrast with conventional renewables, such as wood, which are often cast into very high levels of entropy after usage such that reuse or recycling may not be possible, metallic minerals can in fact be reused and recycled more easily. Thus the “sustainability” indicators of some mineral resources and their usage from a purely chemical and physical perspective is more complex than often presented in popular discourse. Furthermore, the social connotations of the sustainability of minerals also need to be considered with greater nuance. While extractive mineral reservoirs are themselves obsolescent on human timescales, the capital generated from the mineral profits has the potential to catalyze longer-term investments that could provide opportunities for sustainable development that might not otherwise be realized. This Special Issue of Minerals will engage in research that furthers the research agenda around the physical, chemical, and social dimensions of sustainability in the mineral sector.

Prof. Dr. Saleem H. Ali
Guest Editor

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• renewable
• non-renewable
• reuse
• recycling
• mining
• metals
• life cycle analysis
• industrial ecology