Deep-Sea Mining

Dear Colleagues,

With the increasing demand of critical metals for green energy alternatives as well as to support industrialized human society, interest in mining of deep-sea mineral resources, such as ferromanganese nodules, cobalt-rich ferromanganese crusts, seafloor massive sulfides, and rare-earth element-rich muds, has been growing in the last several decades. Although, due to certain economic and technical constraints, commercial deep-sea mining has not been realized as yet, several research groups as well as private enterprises have become involved in developing systematic methods for quantification of their resource potential and in developing prototypes for deep-sea mining technology as well as metallurgical processing. In the field of exploration survey of deep-sea mineral resources, for instance, quite a few systematic methods for quantification of the resource potential have been established. Whereas research on developing prototypes for deep-sea mining technology is underway, no economically innovative technique has yet been developed. Similarly, although several routes in the metallurgical processing have been developed, no environmentally friendly method has yet been established. In the field of environmental protection fields, studies on establishing the baseline conditions have been initiated and small-scale experiments to predict potential impacts due to deep-sea mining have been conducted, but impacts due to large-scale mining and ecosystem functioning have not been understood, yet. Additionally, economic models are under development for mining of deep-sea minerals, which need to be validated. However, considerable research has gone into these topics in the last few decades in different research and academic organizations. Hence, it is proposed that current scientific, technical, environmental, and economic approaches as well as the way ahead for realizing deep-sea mining may be highlighted in a Special Issue dedicated to this topic. We invite the scientists and engineers to contribute their research papers on various aspects of deep-sea mining in this Special Issue on ‘deep-sea mining’.

Dr. Tetsuo Yamazaki
Dr. Sup Hong
Dr. Rahul Sharma
Topic Editors