A Special Issue for ‘Journal of Sustainable Metallurgy’ is dedicated to Circular Hydrometallurgy, an area of hydrometallurgy that focuses on the design of energy-efficient flowsheets or unit processes aimed at minimizing reagent consumption and producing virtually no waste.
Submission deadline: 1st February 2025
Submit your paper at www.editorualmanager.com/sume
Author instructions and additional journal details available at www.springer.com/40831.
Circular hydrometallurgy is the area of hydrometallurgy that focuses on the design of energy-efficient flowsheets or unit processes that consume a minimal amount of reagents and produce virtually no waste. It entails a different way of thinking about how hydrometallurgy is practiced, both for primary mining and recycling processes. Circularity refers to the regeneration and reuse of all the reagents in a process. This not only includes acids or bases used for leaching or pH control, but also any reducing agents, oxidising agents, and other auxiliary reagents. In addition to minimising the consumption of chemical reagents, the consumption of water and energy must be reduced to an absolute minimum. As a guiding framework of how circular hydrometallurgical flowsheets can be designed, a cohesive set of principles has been developed: Binnemans, K., Jones, PT. The Twelve Principles of Circular Hydrometallurgy. J. Sustain. Metall 9, 1-25 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40831-022-00636-3
