Hazardous Minerals

Dear Colleagues,

Natural processes can produce hazardous minerals via different pathways, harming the environment and the organisms through several mechanisms. Massive rocks, as well as mineral particle populations, may represent a hazard and act accordingly to their physical and chemical characteristic to harm a specific target or a broad spectrum of targets. Different chemical–physical characteristics of the minerals (and their anthropogenic uses) affect their accessibility to a certain environment and determine their harmfulness. After dispersion in the environment, these minerals may accumulate into human and animal organs, triggering toxic or carcinogenic effects. The capability of the mineral in interacting with the surrounding environment or organisms is determined by the bulk composition, the surface physicochemical state and topology, the released elements and solubility, dimensionality, as well as the transport of other contaminants that can bind to their surface.

This issue welcomes a broad range of contributions regarding:

• Hazardous mineral identification and geological settings, and contextualization in the involved environments and organisms;
• Hazardous mineral complete characterization using multi-analytical techniques;
• Studies on the interaction of hazardous minerals with simulated biofluids or environmental fluids, and/or cell cultures (e.g., dissolutions study, ROS release, cell viability, DNA damages);
• Analytical methods, protocols, data analysis, and algorithms aiming to perform a complete characterization of hazardous mineral, dimensional distributions, and particle populations;
• Studies on the capability of the hazardous mineral to surface-bind and transport hazardous elements, surface-sorbed compounds (e.g., PAH), bacteria, and viruses attached to the mineral particulate surface;
• Exposure pathways of hazardous minerals, activity which releases mineral particulates (providing a characterization of the produced mineral particles); the industrial, safety, and health consequences of this activity.

Contributions with a scope similar to the ones listed above will be carefully considered for publication.

Dr. Ruggero Vigliaturo
Prof. Dr. Giancarlo Della Ventura
Prof. Dr. Terri-Ann Berry
Prof. Dr. Elena Belluso
Guest Editors

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. Minerals is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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.

• radioactivity
• metal ores
• asbestos and asbestiform minerals
• biosphere
• heavy metals