Progress and frontiers of critical mineral resource availability research based on the perspective of industrial chain

Abstract

As the global economy continues to evolve and human society’s resource demands grow, the strategic significance of mineral resources becomes increasingly pronounced. The competition for mineral resources extends beyond primary minerals and encompasses the entire industrial chain. This article, from the perspective of the industrial chain, defined the boundaries of the critical mineral resource industrial chain as the whole industry chain of exploration and mining-smelting and processing (transportation)-production-industrial utilization-recycling and reuse. We defined the availability of critical mineral resources in terms of each link of the industrial chain, emphasizing the critical roles played by different segments of the industrial chain. Building upon existing research methods on mineral resource availability, we identified 20 factors that influence the availability. These factors were categorized into six dimensions: geological, economic, technological, geopolitical, regulatory, and social aspects. Furthermore, we defined the industrial chain links that they directly affect, and constructed the indicator system of the availability of critical mineral resources from the perspective of different links. In the process of the systematic review, we found that research on critical mineral resource availability from the industrial chain perspective still has shortcomings in terms of its implication, secondary supply, multi-link nexus, and model development and utilization. We proposed four major frontier directions: (1) The new connotation of critical mineral resource availability from the perspective of industrial chain. (2) The novel construction of the relationship between primary resource and secondary resource availability under the background of resource challenges. (3) The coupling relationship of multi-link availability of the whole industrial chain of critical mineral resources. (4) The construction of the availability database and research model of the whole industrial chain of critical mineral resources.

Keywords

• critical minerals|availability|whole industrial chain|supply security|influencing factors|review