Reducing the Environmental Impact of Waste Glass and Expanding the Options for Its Reuse in Construction and Building Materials

Dear Colleagues,

In numerous respects, glass is an environmentally friendly material. Most glasses are created from conventional, safe raw materials such as sand, soda ash, and limestone. Additionally, glass can be reused and recycled indefinitely. However, the large amount of energy needed to melt glass for reuse has a significant impact on the environment. Additionally, certain factors can prevent glass from being recycled via a closed-loop system, including recyclate contamination and inadequate collection methods that result in low recovery rates. Due to its durability and versatility, glass has become a popular component in construction building materials research. With its wide range of applications in different fields, from concrete to alkali-activated binders, waste glass recycling in cementitious materials is a promising practice. Nevertheless, waste glass can induce several challenges, including alkali–silica reaction, reduced strength, durability, workability and others, all of which remain unsolved at the moment. Thus, the construction sector should accelerate the adoption of more energy-efficient waste glass recycling technologies and recognize that waste glass should be developed as an essential ingredient in the production of new value-added construction and products.

Thus, it is my pleasure to invite you to submit a manuscript for this Special Issue of Minerals in order to facilitate the reuse and recycling of waste glass, with the ultimate goal of achieving a carbon-neutral glass economy. It would be an honor to promote solutions to the issues of (i) controlling the mineralogical properties of waste glasses; (ii) mineralogy and geochemistry in the context of waste glass reuse in geomaterials or reproduction; and (iii) emerging uses of waste glass in the built environment. We hope that these novel and anticipated uses for waste glass will inspire students and academics to conduct focused research in these areas in order to develop the new materials and techniques required to address these significant challenges and contribute to the continuous improvement of humanity’s quality of life.

Dr. Gediminas Kastiukas
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 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. Minerals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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.

• application of waste glass as a critical component
• emerging glass technologies
• waste glass in construction building materials
• glass composition and structure
• composition–structure–property relationship principles
• glass melting and forming processes