Raw materials (RMs) are crucial to the world economy. They form a strong base for industry, with a broad range of goods and applications produced for use in everyday life. Reliable and unhindered access to certain RMs is a growing concern within the EU and across the globe. To address this challenge, the European Commission has created a list of 30 critical raw materials (CRMs) for the EU, which is subject to regular reviews and updates. CRMs comprise RMs of high importance to the EU economy and those that have high levels of risk associated with their supply; moreover, they are closely linked to clean technologies. The use of secondary RMs derived from marginal resources as industrial wastes is of strategic importance for industrial production, due to their high concentrations of valuable metals. RMs (i.e., gold, silver, copper, zinc, manganese, nickel) and CRMs (i.e., platinum, indium, cobalt, vanadium, magnesium, antimony, niobium, and rare ores), are essential for the application of emerging modern technologies and to preserve the environment from industrial waste by avoiding the release of pollutants and their components. Innovative processes such as bio-hydrometallurgy, electrowinning, phytoremediation, and bioprecipitation, compared with conventional processes, are characterized and advanced through the reduction in environmental impacts and energy consumption and by the degree of purity of the valuable metals obtained. The economic value of advanced methods for the recovery of critical raw materials from industrial waste, which is closely linked to the choice and optimization of the experimental parameters of the processes, is of great importance. The articles published in this Special Issue all contribute to the improvement of the above-mentioned methods. I would like to thank the authors who accepted the invitation to be part of this Special Issue, helping us to produce a high-impact, high-quality Special Issue on the “Recovery of Critical Raw Materials from Industrial Wastes by Advanced Methods”.
Editorial - Recovery of Critical Raw Materials from IndustrialWastes by Advanced Methods
S. Ubaldini
2025
Abstract
Raw materials (RMs) are crucial to the world economy. They form a strong base for industry, with a broad range of goods and applications produced for use in everyday life. Reliable and unhindered access to certain RMs is a growing concern within the EU and across the globe. To address this challenge, the European Commission has created a list of 30 critical raw materials (CRMs) for the EU, which is subject to regular reviews and updates. CRMs comprise RMs of high importance to the EU economy and those that have high levels of risk associated with their supply; moreover, they are closely linked to clean technologies. The use of secondary RMs derived from marginal resources as industrial wastes is of strategic importance for industrial production, due to their high concentrations of valuable metals. RMs (i.e., gold, silver, copper, zinc, manganese, nickel) and CRMs (i.e., platinum, indium, cobalt, vanadium, magnesium, antimony, niobium, and rare ores), are essential for the application of emerging modern technologies and to preserve the environment from industrial waste by avoiding the release of pollutants and their components. Innovative processes such as bio-hydrometallurgy, electrowinning, phytoremediation, and bioprecipitation, compared with conventional processes, are characterized and advanced through the reduction in environmental impacts and energy consumption and by the degree of purity of the valuable metals obtained. The economic value of advanced methods for the recovery of critical raw materials from industrial waste, which is closely linked to the choice and optimization of the experimental parameters of the processes, is of great importance. The articles published in this Special Issue all contribute to the improvement of the above-mentioned methods. I would like to thank the authors who accepted the invitation to be part of this Special Issue, helping us to produce a high-impact, high-quality Special Issue on the “Recovery of Critical Raw Materials from Industrial Wastes by Advanced Methods”.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
