Manuscript Topics

There is an increasing demand for clean energy products to meet the societal needs and lower carbon footprint. President Joe Biden has an ambitious environmental and sustainability plan to invest $1.7 trillion for clean energy economy and net-zero emissions [1]. General Motors announced that it would sell only zero-emission vehicles by 2035 [2]. As a consequence, critical materials that enable clean energy products will have a substantial growth in the near future.

According to the US Department of Interior, there are 35 mineral commodities deemed critical. They are aluminum (bauxite), antimony, arsenic, barite, beryllium, bismuth, cesium, chromium, cobalt, fluorspar, gallium, germanium, graphite (natural), hafnium, helium, indium, lithium, magnesium, manganese, niobium, platinum group metals, potash, the rare earth elements group, rhenium, rubidium, scandium, strontium, tantalum, tellurium, tin, titanium, tungsten, uranium, vanadium, and zirconium. In addition, the European Commission included borate, coking coal, natural rubber, phosphate rock, phosphorus, and silicon metal into the 2020 Critical Raw Materials list [3].

While the critical materials are primarily produced from virgin ores, there is a tremendous opportunity to recycle them from end-of-life life (EOL) products. Rare earth elements (REE), for example, have an in-use stock several magnitudes higher than their annual extraction rate [4]. However, REE recycling rate is less than 1% from EOL products.

To increase supply of critical materials and improve the current recycling practices, this special issue aims to gather up-to-date knowledge related to the cutting-edge research in the broad scientific area of critical materials for clean energy applications. Covered topics include, but are not limited to

• Sustainable extraction and recovery technologies for critical materials
• Circular economy practices for products containing critical materials (e.g., electronic waste, solar panels, and electric vehicles)
• Process modeling and optimization for critical materials production and recycling technologies
• Techno-economic analysis that facilitates new technology development for economic feasibility
• Forecasting supply and demand for critical materials and their containing products
• Life cycle assessment that enhances environmental sustainability of clean energy technologies
• Supply chain management for critical materials and their containing products
• Policy analysis for evaluating the status quo and promoting low carbon society
• Life cycle engineering for sustainable design and circular strategies

Different types of manuscripts are welcome, including original research articles and critical review papers.

The paper, if officially accepted by AIMS Clean Technologies & Recycling, will be published in open access form soon after professional editing. No publication fee will be charged from the authors. If this is of interest, you are welcome to send a tentative title to the editorial office (cleantech@aimsiences.org) for checking the suitability.

Reference links:

[1] https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/
[2]https://www-nytimes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.nytimes.com/2021/01/28/business/gm-zero-emission-vehicles.amp.html
[3] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:52020DC0474
[4] https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2011.00362.x

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