Dear Colleagues,

We cordially invite you to submit your research and/or review work to this Special Issue entitled “Recent Advances in the Sustainability of Energy- and Resource-Intensive Key Materials”.

In the near future, the global scenario regarding industrial production will need to manage several critical aspects to find a balance between the increase in demand for goods and the environmental impact of industrial production. Converging concerns are related to energy and resource demands, which are the basis of revisions to energy production policies, energy efficiency implementation, green chemistry processes and circular economy approaches. The challenge is even more difficult for several key materials (which the current infrastructure growth is grounded on) that are crucial for near-future developments and are currently impossible to substitute. For many of them, serious warnings regarding their use are related to the global feedstock distribution, availability, and use as well as energetic and environmental footprints. The needs to implement and improve processes for materials and elemental recovery, as well as recycling, are still lacking attention.

The scope of this issue is to give insights, from both academic and industrial points of view, on the state of the art for specifically critical materials, their current impacts and threats and their sustainable production processes, as well as to provide the most updated and promising advances on research results that can contribute to the reduction and mitigation of the main problems that a sustainable global future faces. The topics of interests include, but are not limited to, energy saving, circular economy, critical raw materials, feedstock, LCA, energy and resource intensity, environmental impacts, low-temperature clinkers, concrete demolition waste, supplementary cementitious materials, etc.

We are looking forward to receiving your excellent research works for this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Enrico Boccaleri
Dr. Claudio Cassino
Dr. Giorgio Cantino
Dr. Geo Paul
Prof. Dr. Silvia Serranti
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. Materials 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 2600 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.

• energy saving
• circular economy
• critical raw materials
• feedstock
• LCA
• energy- and resource-intensity
• environmental impact
• cement
• iron and steel
• non ferrous metals
• glass and ceramics
• materials for electrical and electronic applications