Leaching Kinetics of Valuable Metals

Dear Colleagues,

Leaching is a primary extractive operation in hydrometallurgical processing, by which a metal of interest is transferred from naturally-occurring minerals into an aqueous solution. In essence, it involves the selective dissolution of valuable minerals, where the ore, concentrate, or matte is brought into contact with an active chemical solution known as a leach solution.

Currently, the hydrometallurgical processes have a great application, not only in the mining sector—in particular, for the recovery of precious metals, such as gold and silver—but also in the environmental sector, for the recovery of toxic metals (such as copper, nickel, zinc, manganese, arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead) from wastes of various types, and their reuse as valuable metals, after purification.

Therefore, there is an increasing need to develop novel solutions, to implement environmentally sustainable practices in the recovery of these valuable and precious metals, with particular reference to the critical metals, that are those included in materials that are indispensable to modern life and for which an exponential increase in consumption is already a reality or will be in a short-term perspective (antimony, indium, vanadium, rare hearts, etc.).

Consequently, the economics of the processes, which is closely linked to the kinetics of leaching, is of great importance.

For publication in this Special Issue, will be considered those articles that will contribute to the optimization of the kinetic conditions of innovative hydrometallurgical processes—economic and of low environmental impact—applied for the recovery of valuable and critical metals.

I hope you accept this invitation, and help us to make a high-impact and high-quality Special Issue on "Leaching Kinetics of Valuable Metals".

Dr. Stefano Ubaldini
Guest Editor

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