Recycling and Recovery of Rare Earth Metals

Dear Colleagues,

Rare earth metals and their compounds have unique chemical, catalytic, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties. In addition to their traditional use in sectors such as metallurgy, petroleum refinement, textiles, and agriculture, rare earth metals are critical to burgeoning applications such as batteries, hybrid cars, wind turbines, flat-screen televisions, and defense technologies. The global mine production in 2019 was 210,000 tonnes of rare-earth-oxide equivalent, an 11% increase over 2018 [1]. Although the term “rare” earth is a misnomer, these relatively abundant elements seldom occur in concentrated mineral deposits from which rare earth metals can be extracted economically. Moreover, the mining, processing, and separation of these elements are capital- and energy-intensive, and may require the removal and disposal of chemically similar radioactive actinides. Hence, there is significant interest in improving the processes used to recover rare earth metals from minerals, such as bastnaesite, monazite, and xenotime, and ion-adsorption rare earth deposits, along with recovering rare earth metals from non-conventional sources such as wastes from coal production. There is also significant interest in recycling rare earth metals, either from their compounds or alloys. This presents logistical challenges in terms of collecting rare-earth-rich components, along with the technical issues associated with economically processing such sources.

This Special Issue of Metals will include reviews and research articles on any topic related to the recovery and recycling of rare earth metals, including economic and life cycle analyses.  Authors with questions about whether their work would lie within the scope of this Special Issue are invited to submit an abstract before preparing a full manuscript.

Prof. Dr. Fiona M. Doyle
Guest Editor

Reference

1. USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2020 Available online: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/nmic/mineral-commodity-summaries (accessed on 2 July 2020)

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Metals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• leaching of rare earth minerals
• novel primary rare earth resources
• solvent extraction and separation of rare earths
• novel separation methods for rare earths
• thorium and uranium removal from rare earth resources
• collection of rare-earth-bearing wastes
• treatment processes for secondary rare earth sources
• economics of rare earth recycling and recovery
• life cycle analysis of rare earth processing and recycling.