Sustainable Mining: Advancements, Challenges and Future Directions

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainable mining practices are the future of the extractive industry. The challenges are technical and extra-technical. The large-scale mines of the future will always deal with lower mineral grades and deeper deposits, facing issues with technical viability and the safety and well-being of the operators. The deep deposits will provide stronger rocks, which will increase the energy demand for the comminution processes: the sources for this energy will have to shift to clean and renewable. On the other hand, the new deposits available are rich in grade,  close to the surface and are of a small scale. The artisanal and small-scale mining will take a larger and larger role in the mineral value chain, facing the environmental and social issues that this size of mining carries. The value chain will shift from a linear to a circular economy, which will include the objective of zero-waste mining.

This Special Issue focuses on the advancements, challenges, and future directions of sustainable mining. We invite original research articles, reviews, and other related contributions to this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Jacopo Seccatore
Prof. Dr. Tatiane Marin
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.

• small scale mining
• zero waste mining
• clean energy
• social license
• mine closure
• safety
• occupational health and safety
• low mineral grades
• great depth mining
• circular economy of minerals