Recent Advances in Metals Recovery from Solid and Liquid Wastes

Dear Colleagues,

We are extremely glad to announce that a Special Issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050, Impact Factor 2.576) on “Recent Advances in Metals Recovery from Solid and Liquid Wastes” will be published in 2021. Articles that deal with sustainable recovery of metals (including but not limited to critical metals, rare Earth elements, platinum group metals, and strategic metals) by bio- and hydrometallurgy from solid wastes and wastewater will be considered for this Special Issue.

Demand for critical and rare Earth metals to be used in the day-to-day life is increasing rapidly. However, metallurgical industries could not meet the demand because of shortage and depletion of high-grade metal reserves. Subsequently, alternative feedstock is the need of the hour for sustainable metal production. In this regard, metal bearing wastes have received much attention as they contain a significant concentration of valuable metals. However, conventional processes with limitations such as high energy and cost requirements are not feasible for metals recovery from secondary resources.

On the other hand, bio/hydrometallurgy is a relatively new subset of processes for the extraction of critical and strategic metals and rare Earth elements. Hydrometallurgy consists of two important unit operations, leaching (upstream) and recovery (downstream). Leaching is the conversion of metal ions from an insoluble solid phase to soluble aqueous phase metals using chemical or biological lixiviants. Recovery is the extraction metals from pregnant leaching solution using physicochemical or electrical or biological processes. Microbial technologies are also promising for recovering metals because of a lower cost, technical feasibility for large-scale applications, and no need for addition of toxic chemicals.

In this Special Issue on “Recent Advances in Metals Recovery from Solid and Liquid Wastes”, we aim to compile review and research articles focusing on sustainable recovery of metals from different wastes (such as WEEE, municipal wastes, mining and metallurgical wastes, industrial wastes, wastewater, mine drainage and tailings, sewage, etc.) by biological and chemical processes.

Dr. Manivannan Sethurajan
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. Sustainability 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.

• biomining
• urban mining
• biohydrometallurgy
• hydrometallurgy
• sustainability
• waste processing
• circular economy
• strategic metals
• critical raw materials
• battery metals
• e-mobility metals
• rare Earth elements
• solid waste management