Separation and Leaching for Metals Recovery

Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, the interest in urban mines has been gradually increasing. As a result, the industrial scale and case for commercialization have also been increasing dramatically. Raw materials in the urban mining industry can be divided mainly into industrial waste (including scrap) and municipal waste (including end-of-life products). Unfortunately, the current recycling research and metal recovery rates for municipal waste are much lower compared to industrial waste. This may be the result of a shortage of economic feasibility, the variety in compositions (such as non-metal and organic materials), and the lower content of metals in the municipal wastes. Municipal waste having these characteristics is not directly processed for metal recovery, and first requires separation and concentration using a separation pretreatment.

Therefore, further research is needed on the recovery and recycling of metal components from municipal wastes using a leaching process, as well as separation processes such as unit separation, dismantling/detaching, thermal decomposition, and physical separation (also referred to as mineral processing). This research could form the basis for the development of commercialization processes for municipal wastes and in addition to realization of a sustainable society through the continuous growth of the urban mining industry.

This Special Issue aims to address the latest research on not only leaching processes but also separation processes for waste with low-content metals (including end-life products), in order to achieve economic feasibility. Moreover, research articles will focus on the development of integrated environmentally friendly and cost-effective separation and leaching processes for the recovery of valuable metals.

Prof. Dr. Jaeryeong Lee
Guest Editor

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