New Extraction Processes for Critical Metals from Non-Metallurgical Resources
A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 January 2026 | Viewed by 249
Special Issue Editors
Interests: thermodynamics; kinetics; extractive metallurgy
Interests: hydrometallurgy; separation process; electrodialysis; reverse osmosis; ultrafiltration; microfiltration; solvent extraction; recycling processes; circular economy; SDGs; net-zero emission
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Currently, we are witnessing a rapidly increasing number of initiatives contributing to a sustainable energy transition. However, in many cases, there is a limited supply of critical metals to support the future demand for manufacturing devices for electric transport, green energy production, and the ever-increasing consumption of communication and entertainment gadgets. From this perspective, it is imperative to develop new routes to exploit atypical (non-metallurgical) sources of metals, thereby lowering the gap between the future demand and expected supply and avoid hindering energy transition goals. The use of complex raw materials in the metallurgical industry, such as urban residues, low-grade mineral occurrences, and industry wastes and effluents, is not only desirable but also necessary in order to achieve such goals. In this context, processes such as thermodynamic and kinetic modeling, as well as transport phenomena relating to such challenging reaction systems, provide important foundations for the development of efficient extraction routes.
This Special Issue invites submissions of original scientific research associated with new extractive processes, based on the use of complex raw materials as sources for recovering critical metals, which are strongly guided by accurate thermodynamic, kinetic, and/or transport phenomena modeling. This Special Issue focuses on the following topics:
- The study of equilibrium conditions to promote the selective recovery of critical metals;
- Simulation and optimization of operational conditions based on kinetic modeling;
- Transport phenomena simulations to understand the behavior of proposed equipment for metal extraction under different process scales;
- Fundamental research based on the application of either density functional theory or molecular dynamics computations.
Yours faithfully,
Dr. Rogério C.S. Navarro
Dr. Amilton Barbosa Botelho Junior
Guest Editors
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. Minerals 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 2400 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.
Keywords
- electronic waste
- battery metals
- low-grade resources
- metallurgical waste
- pyrometallurgy
- hydrometallurgy
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