Resource, environmental and economics research for primary and secondary copper: A bibliometric and systematic review

Copper is critical for industrial, economic, and social development, especially in the transition to low-carbon energy sources. However, information on copper in these aspects needs to be more cohesive. As such, this extensive review applies bibliometric analysis and systematic literature review to explore the knowledge structure for major and emerging topics in the research field of copper resources, environment, and economics. 9350 works published on the Web of Science and China National Knowledge Infrastructure from 1990 to 2022 were collected, of which 261 were analyzed to report this field's publication trend, significant contributors, and research themes. We also examined the scientific problems, tools, and methods in resource, environment, and economics and explored the future research possibilities. Our findings indicated that this topic has received increasing attention and that Western authors are the most significant contributors. Interestingly, we observed that while works primarily focus on secondary copper and recycling, contributions in Chinese tend to focus more on the economic aspect of industrial development. In contrast, English-based contributions focus mainly on resource accounting and environmental impact assessment. Secondary copper, circular economy, flow, future, and stock have always been the research hotspots, China's import ban and energy transition are the recent research hotspots, and material flow analysis and life cycle assessment are the primary and popular modeling tools. Individual studies of copper in resources, environment, and economy have received more attention. At the same time, comprehensive research involving these three aspects, especially how to consider the economic impact dynamically and deeply, have been underestimated in the literature. These knowledge gaps need to be addressed in the future, including conducting theoretical mechanism analysis, introducing tools and techniques, refining research spatial scales, and evaluating policy impact and performance to ensure that future research can support science-based decision and policy making.