Critical Minerals and Associated Elements in Mine Effluent and Treatment Residuals: Management Strategies and Technologies for Resource Recovery
A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Mineralogy and Biogeochemistry".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 10 October 2025 | Viewed by 2065
Special Issue Editors
Interests: resource estimates and characterization of mineral and energy resources; beneficial reuse of industrial and treatment wastes; sustainable resource recovery and production, including critical mineral recovery from mine drainage and associated solids
Interests: integrating field, laboratory, and computer modeling methods to understand factors affecting water quality, especially those in highly disturbed or engineered environments; mine-impacted watersheds and water treatment systems for remediation of acid mine drainage (AMD)
Interests: mitigating environmental impacts and improving environmental sustainability associated with energy production; beneficial utilizations of coal combustion residuals (CCRs); mine land reclamation; sustainable critical minerals recovery; sorbent synthesis; flue gas carbon dioxide sequestration
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
“Critical minerals” (CMs), including rare earth elements (REEs) and various trace elements (e.g., Li, Mn, Co, Ni, Zn), are components for renewable energy sources and energy storage and, thus, are essential for the transition to a low-carbon economy. The vulnerability of supplies, environmental concerns, and permitting challenges associated with traditional CM sources have generated interest in recovery from unconventional resources. This Special Issue calls for research on understanding the geochemical transformations and engineering techniques related to the enrichment and behaviors of CMs from one type of unconventional resource, mine waste streams (e.g., coal or metal mines) and treatment precipitates (e.g., passive or active treatment systems). Such information is needed for resource estimates and sustainable CMs recovery from mine waste feedstocks.
We welcome submissions to this Special Issue that incorporate one or more of the following: (1) field and/or laboratory studies of CMs behavior and hydrobiogeochemical interactions in mine drainage in treatment systems; (2) advanced characterization to improve CMs quantification and that leads to improved understanding of metal mineral binding mechanisms; (3) geochemical modeling of equilibrium and kinetics of CMs, concentrating on mechanisms such as sorption and co-precipitation; and (4) novel mine drainage treatment strategies that improve CMs enrichment, separation, and extraction processes while reducing environmental impacts and treatment costs. Open discussions on resource management, social–economic evaluation, as well as sustainability and carbon accounting are also encouraged.
Dr. Mengling Stuckman
Dr. Charles A. Cravotta
Dr. Chin-Min Cheng
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
- mine drainage
- tailing leachate
- environmentally responsible
- (bio)geochemical interactions and models
- rare earth elements
- lithium
- transition metals
- socio-economic assessment
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