Sustainable Mining: Advancements, Challenges and Future Directions
A special issue of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X). This special issue belongs to the section "Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 November 2025 | Viewed by 4978
Special Issue Editors
Interests: sustainable small scale mining; mining methods and techniques for small scale underground mining
Special Issue Information
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
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Keywords
- small scale mining
- zero waste mining
- mine closure
- low mineral grades
- great depth mining
- circular economy of minerals
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