Critical Raw Materials Recovery through Bio/Hydrometallurgy from Secondary Resources

Dear Colleagues,

We are happy to announce that a Special Issue of Metals (ISSN 2075-4701, impact factor 1.704) on “Critical Raw Materials Recovery through Bio/Hydrometallurgy from Secondary Resources” will be published in 2019. Articles that deal with secondary resources (including, but not limited to, critical raw materials, technology critical elements, rare earth elements, and precious metals) recovery by chemical and biological hydrometallurgy from primary ores and secondary resources (such as slags, sludges, red mud, tailings, shales, dusts, fly and bottom ashes, electronic wastes, etc.) will be considered for this Special Issue.

Demand for critical raw materials to be used in consumer products is growing rapidly. However, in the past couple of decades, the world’s high-grade metal reserves have been depleted considerably. As a consequence, alternative resources are currently being explored for metal extraction. In this regard, secondary resources have received considerable attention as they contain a considerable amount of metals. Conventional pyrometallurgical processes are not really of use for resource recovery from secondary resources because of its high energy and cost requirements.

On the other hand, bio/hydrometallurgy is a fast-developing, eco-friendly and cost-effective technology for the extraction of base and precious metals and rare earth elements. Hydrometallurgy consists of leaching and recovery unit operations. Leaching is the solubilization of metals from a solid phase using chemicals or biological agents whereas and recovery is the extraction metals from poly-metallic leachate using physico-chemical processes, electrowinning, or biological processes. Bio/hydrometallurgy can be successfully applied, not only to a variety of mineral ores, such as high grade, low grade, and lean grade ores, but also to secondary resources (such as slags, sludges, red mud, dusts, fly and bottom ashes, and electronic wastes).

Dr. Manivannan Sethurajan
Prof. Dr. Eric D. van Hullebusch
Guest Editors

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