Recent Advances in Automated Mineralogy: From SEM-Based Systems to µXRF, 3D µCT and Beyond
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 March 2026 | Viewed by 1073
Special Issue Editors
Interests: materials characterization; digital microscopy; image processing; artificial intelligence; correlative microscopy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: ore characterization; applied mineralogy; quantitative mineralogy; X-ray diffraction
Interests: automated mineralogy; micrXRF; SEM-EDS; geochemistry; ore mineralogy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Automated mineralogy systems emerged in the 1980s to evaluate mineral resources and improve process control in the mining industry. Since then, they have become an important tool in both academy and industry for the quantitative analysis of different materials in several fields, such as geosciences, petroleum, forensics, and environmental monitoring. These SEM-based systems comprise microscope control and automation, BSE image acquisition, EDS mapping and analysis, image processing, mineral phase recognition, and automatic results reporting. However, although they are a powerful tool and the variety of their applications has grown, their set-up has changed little since their conception. This scenario has changed recently with the launch of automated mineralogy systems based on µXRF and 3D µCT, as well as multimodal systems that combine different imaging and analytical techniques. Furthermore, the incorporation of recent advances in artificial intelligence has improved their capabilities in image analysis and phase recognition. We therefore call for papers dealing with new methods of automated mineralogy, as well as case studies in areas that may include, but are not limited to, petrology, mineral processing, petroleum exploration and production, recycling, environmental monitoring, and forensics.
Dr. Otávio da Fonseca Martins Gomes
Dr. Reiner Neumann
Dr. Andrew Menzies
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- scanning electron microscope (SEM)
- micro X-ray fluorescence (µXRF)
- 3D X-ray micro computed tomography (3D µCT)
- process mineralogy
- mineral liberation analysis
- geometallurgy
- geosciences
- petroleum exploration
- petroleum production
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