A New Journal Aims to Turn the World’s Solid Waste into Tomorrow’s Ecomaterials
A new scientific journal is inviting researchers to rethink one of the planet’s most persistent problems: what happens to solid waste after it leaves the construction site, factory, mine, power plant, or farm. Materials Reports: Solidwaste and Ecomaterials, known as MRSE, began publication in 2025 with a mission to transform discarded materials into useful, safe, and high-value products. Published by Tsinghua University Press through its SciOpen platform, the journal is welcoming submissions covering original research, reviews, progress reports, and communications. Its central idea is both scientifically ambitious and urgently practical: waste should not be treated only as a disposal challenge, but as a secondary resource that can be engineered into new materials for a lower-carbon future.
The journal focuses on the science and technology required to convert a remarkably diverse range of wastes into functional ecomaterials. These include construction and demolition debris, mining tailings, coal combustion byproducts, metallurgical slags, industrial hazardous wastes, and agricultural residues. Although these materials differ substantially in chemical composition, particle size, mineral structure, and contamination risk, many contain valuable components such as aluminosilicates, calcium-bearing phases, iron oxides, carbon, and other mineral resources. Through processes including separation, grinding, thermal treatment, chemical activation, blending, and mineral carbonation, researchers can alter their physical and chemical properties. The goal is to produce materials that are unhazardous, durable, affordable, and suitable for applications ranging from infrastructure and construction to environmental remediation.
One important research pathway highlighted by MRSE is the development of low-carbon cementitious systems and alkali-activated binders. Conventional Portland cement is widely used because it provides strength and durability, but its manufacture requires high-temperature processing and contributes significantly to global carbon dioxide emissions. Waste-derived binders offer a possible alternative by using reactive industrial residues, such as fly ash, slag, and other aluminosilicate-rich materials. When these wastes are combined with alkaline activators, their internal structures can dissolve and reorganize into binding phases capable of hardening at ambient or moderately controlled conditions. The resulting materials may reduce the need for clinker while also diverting large waste streams from landfills and storage ponds. Their performance, however, depends on careful control of composition, curing, durability, and potential leaching.
MRSE also welcomes research on mine backfill materials, an area where waste valorization could directly support safer and more sustainable mining. Mine backfill is placed underground to stabilize excavated areas, control ground movement, and improve worker safety. It can be produced from tailings, waste rock, metallurgical residues, cementitious additives, and other industrial byproducts. Designing an effective backfill requires engineers to balance compressive strength, flowability, setting time, permeability, and long-term chemical stability. If properly engineered, waste-based backfill can reduce the volume of tailings stored at the surface while replacing part of the virgin materials traditionally required for underground support. Researchers must also examine how toxic elements behave under changing groundwater conditions, since a material that performs well mechanically must also remain environmentally secure over decades.
Another technology receiving attention is mineral carbonation, which uses chemical reactions to lock carbon dioxide into stable carbonate minerals. Many alkaline wastes, including certain slags, mine residues, and cement-related materials, contain calcium or magnesium that can react with carbon dioxide. In theory, this process can provide two environmental benefits at once: it can consume industrial waste and permanently store carbon in a solid form. The reaction may also improve the durability and dimensional stability of some waste-derived products. Scientists are investigating methods to accelerate carbonation, including controlled gas exposure, moisture management, particle-size reduction, and integrated curing systems. The challenge is to ensure that the energy and infrastructure needed for processing do not cancel out the environmental gains. MRSE provides a platform for studies that measure both technical performance and full life-cycle impacts.
The journal’s editors are particularly interested in the growing connection between artificial intelligence, data science, and waste valorization. Waste streams are often highly variable, making it difficult to predict how a particular residue will behave in a cementitious mixture, composite, or ceramic product. Machine-learning models can analyze large datasets containing chemical composition, mineralogy, particle characteristics, processing conditions, strength development, and durability results. These models may help researchers identify promising formulations before conducting extensive laboratory testing. Artificial intelligence could also assist with automated sorting, where computer-vision systems distinguish plastics, metals, concrete, glass, and contaminated materials on rapidly moving conveyor belts. In material design, data-driven methods may reveal combinations of wastes and additives that would be difficult to discover through conventional trial and error.
The practical value of such research extends beyond laboratories and academic publications. MRSE is inviting reports from industry describing successful projects in which solid wastes have been converted into materials for real construction or engineering applications. These projects could provide crucial evidence about scalability, supply-chain reliability, regulatory approval, cost, maintenance, and performance under weather and loading conditions. A material that works in a controlled laboratory experiment may face very different challenges when produced thousands of tonnes at a time. Variations in waste composition, transportation distances, processing energy, worker safety, and local environmental regulations can determine whether a promising technology becomes commercially viable. By encouraging technically structured industry reports, the journal aims to connect scientific discovery with the complex realities of deploying circular-economy technologies.
The broader ambition behind MRSE is to help establish a new framework for materials science based on secondary resources rather than continuous extraction of virgin raw materials. The built environment consumes enormous quantities of minerals, aggregates, cement, metals, and energy, while simultaneously generating vast amounts of waste. A circular approach seeks to keep these resources in use for as long as possible through reuse, recycling, recovery, and redesign. This does not mean every waste stream can or should be transformed into a new product. Some materials contain persistent contaminants or require more energy to process than the resulting product is worth. For that reason, reliable assessment must include toxicology, life-cycle analysis, carbon accounting, durability testing, and end-of-life planning. The journal’s stated objective is to support solutions that are not merely technically possible, but genuinely beneficial for ecosystems and communities.
MRSE is led by Dongmin Wang of China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), who serves as founding Editor-in-Chief. The Co-Editors-in-Chief are Chi Sun Poon of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hongzhi Cui of Shenzhen University, and Zuhua Zhang of Tongji University. Peiliang Shen of Wuhan University of Technology serves as an Associate Editor. According to the editorial team, manuscripts are handled through the ScholarOne submission system and undergo peer review intended to be fair, timely, and constructive. Accepted papers are expected to appear online as “Just Accepted” articles within two weeks through SciOpen. The journal is also waiving article processing charges until the end of 2026, a policy designed to make publication more accessible to researchers worldwide and to encourage contributions from both established laboratories and emerging research groups.
By bringing together waste chemistry, civil engineering, environmental science, materials design, artificial intelligence, and industrial practice, Materials Reports: Solidwaste and Ecomaterials is positioning itself at the intersection of several fast-moving scientific fields. Its success will depend on whether published research can move beyond the language of waste reduction to demonstrate measurable improvements in carbon emissions, resource efficiency, safety, cost, and long-term performance. Yet the opportunity is substantial. Tailings, slags, ash, demolition debris, and agricultural residues are often seen as symbols of industrial excess; with the right science, they could become feedstocks for a more circular built environment. As cities expand and pressure grows on landfills, mines, and climate targets, the materials discarded today may become some of the most important ingredients in tomorrow’s infrastructure.
Subject of Research:
Conversion of solid wastes into safe, functional, valuable, and environmentally friendly ecomaterials.
Article Title:
A New Journal Aims to Turn the World’s Solid Waste into Tomorrow’s Ecomaterials
Web References:
https://www.sciopen.com/journal/3078-4093
https://www.sciopen.com/journal/join_journal/about_journal?id=1834035204970827778&issn=3078-4093
https://mc03.manuscriptcentral.com/mrse
References:
Materials Reports: Solidwaste and Ecomaterials, Tsinghua University Press and SciOpen.
Image Credits:
Materials Reports: Solidwaste and Ecomaterials
Keywords
solid waste, ecomaterials, waste valorization, circular economy, sustainable materials, low-carbon cement, alkali-activated binders, mine backfill, mineral carbonation, artificial intelligence, materials engineering, environmental engineering, zero-waste society
