Hydrometallurgy of Rare Earth Elements: Advances in Upgrading, Solubility, and Separation
A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 November 2026 | Viewed by 21
Special Issue Editors
Interests: hydrometallurgy; metallurgical kinetics; solution chemistry; interfacial phenomena; electrometallurgy; nano/colloidal particles synthesis and applications
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Rare earth elements (REEs) represent a vital group of metals essential to modern high-tech industries. They have varied sources, including mineral deposits, where they appear in ionic adsorption, fluoro-carbonate, phosphate, silicate, and oxide forms, as well as in by-products derived from coal and aluminum and phosphate rocks used in fertilizer production.
With increasing demand for REEs to support technological advancement, significant attention has turned to their recovery from recycling streams, such as spent magnets and other electronic waste. Because the solubility of REEs varies considerably across these diverse sources, having a thorough understanding of their dissolution behavior is essential to achieve effective extraction into solution.
This Special Issue will present the latest and most innovative developments in the processing of rare earth elements. This includes advances in the physical separation of REE-bearing minerals, including but not limited to density and magnetic separation, leaching techniques including pre-treatment leaching that exploit differences in solubility among various sources, and chemical separation methods for REEs dissolved in solution, such as precipitation, adsorption, ion exchange (IX), and solvent extraction (SX). It is also worth emphasizing that, in this context, hydrometallurgy is broadly defined as encompassing all liquid-based processes, including those utilizing ionic liquids and deep eutectic solvents.
Prof. Dr. Kenneth N. Han
Dr. Jihye Kim
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- rare earth elements
- physical separation
- adsorption
- precipitation
- ion-exchange (IX)
- solvent exchange (SX)
- selectivity
- recycling
- ionic liquids
- deep eutectic solvents
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