Advances in Metallurgical Processing and Involved Separation Techniques
A special issue of Processes (ISSN 2227-9717). This special issue belongs to the section "Separation Processes".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 March 2026) | Viewed by 1827
Editor
Interests: hydrometallurgy; separation process; electrodialysis; reverse osmosis; ultrafiltration; microfiltration; solvent extraction; recycling processes; circular economy; SDGs; net-zero emission
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Interest in mining to obtain critical metals has increased in recent decades. Among these metals are cobalt, lithium, rare earth elements, gallium, germanium, hafnium, indium, niobium, platinum group metals, tantalum, titanium, vanadium, tungsten, and strontium. These critical metals are crucial for energy transition.
The insertion of metals into society through increasingly complex electronic equipment puts even greater pressure on extractive processes from primary sources. For instance, printed circuit boards are becoming more and more complex, as well as the replacement of technologies (fluorescent lamps for LED or LCD TVs for LEDs and OLEDs).
At the same time, the decrease in metal content in ores results in increased generation of mining waste, which can also be used as a secondary source of other critical metals. For example, bauxite is the main ore for making alumina, and the Bayer process residue (also known as red mud) contains critical and valuable metals such as titanium, zirconium, and rare earth elements (such as scandium, yttrium, lanthanum, and cerium).
For this reason, metallurgical processes are important to supply critical metals. However, as residues become more complex, further research is necessary to develop new recycling approaches towards the circular economy and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals from the United Nations.
This Special Issue aims to address the most recent developments in recycling processes to obtain critical and valuable metals from secondary sources by pyro- and hydrometallurgical techniques, which include pyrolysis, roasting, smelting, calcination, leaching (inorganic and organic acids and alkali), ion exchange separation (resins and solvent extraction), precipitation, ionic liquids, deep eutectic solvents, supercritical fluids, nanohydrometallurgy, and biohydrometallurgy. Moreover, research articles will focus on techniques/processes to achieve sustainable development goals.
We gladly invite you to submit your work to this Special Issue.
Dr. Amilton Botelho Junior
Guest Editor
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.
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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Processes is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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
- hydrometallurgy
- pyrometallurgy
- recycling
- energy transition
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