A study on the impact of technological innovation on the sustainability of critical mineral supply from a multidimensional perspective: a case study of cobalt

Zhenghao Meng (), Han Sun (), Simeng Song, Yannan Ding, Jinhua Cheng, Chenxi Liu and Lu Chen
Additional contact information
Zhenghao Meng: China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)
Han Sun: China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)
Simeng Song: China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)
Yannan Ding: China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)
Jinhua Cheng: China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)
Chenxi Liu: China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)
Lu Chen: China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)

Mineral Economics, 2025, vol. 38, issue 3, No 1, 493-511

Abstract: Abstract Technical innovation is a key factor influencing the supply of critical mineral. Past scholars have often overlooked the time lag effect of technological innovation and the heterogeneity and correlation of different technologies. Focusing on the critical mineral cobalt, this study combines social network analysis and the ARIMAX method to investigate the evolutionary characteristics of the cobalt industry's technological innovation network and analyze the impact of technological innovation and other factors on the supply of critical minerals. The research finds that the scale of the technological innovation network continues to expand, and the cohesion and stability of the network are continuously enhanced. Technological innovation has a one-year and significantly positive time lag effect on mineral supply. The economic and price impacts on supply are significantly positively correlated in the short term, and the impact of mineral supply on itself has a two-year time lag effect with reserves. Further research indicates that different types of technological innovation have significant heterogeneity in their impact on mineral supply. In functional technological innovation, efficiency enhancement has the greatest impact, followed by cost reduction, with safety improvement having the smallest impact. In process technological innovation, the impact of "extraction" type is the greatest, followed by "processing" type, with "smelting" type having the smallest impact. In terms of time lag effect, technological innovations in different functions and process stages have time lag effects of 1–3 years.

Keywords: Technical innovation; Social networks; ARIMAX; Time lag effect; Technological correlation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13563-024-00481-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:minecn:v:38:y:2025:i:3:d:10.1007_s13563-024-00481-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/13563

DOI: 10.1007/s13563-024-00481-8

Access Statistics for this article

Mineral Economics is currently edited by Magnus Ericsson and Patrik Söderholm

More articles in Mineral Economics from Springer, Raw Materials Group (RMG), Luleå University of Technology
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().