A comparative framework for criticality assessment of strategic raw materials in Turkey

The rapid development of innovative technologies, population growth, shifting resource management patterns, and decarbonization challenges are expected to increase the demand for raw materials labeled as critical in the following years. The increasing concerns have led to evaluate the critical raw materials (CRMs) with high economic importance and supply risk. In this context, this paper aims to develop a conceptual methodology to identify CRMs in Turkey. The methodology integrates a multi-criteria decision-making method (MCDM) to provide the raw material criticality matrix regarding various criteria, the EU (European Union) method, which represents supply risk and economic importance indicators, and the time series analysis method, in which dynamic evaluation of materials over time instead of the static indicators. We first provide a Bayesian Best-Worst method (B-BWM) and TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution) based model for the criticality matrix, which enables evaluations of participated experts to be combined to reveal the weights of the criteria and sub-criteria from a probabilistic point of view without loss of knowledge. The main and sub-criteria include supply risk and economic importance, which are frequently studied in the literature, but also environment, price, secondary production, and socio-economic indicators are evaluated in the criticality matrix. Then, exponential smoothing forecast, one of the Time Series Analysis models, which determine the element criticality in the perspective of future years with the data of import figures of Turkey, is superior to the other models. Finally, with some modifications, the EU criticality methodology is used to quantify the raw materials regarding each material associated with the sector applications and their value-added and supply disruptions. Thus, a comprehensive criticality list integrating the results of the three mentioned methods is important because Turkey's raw materials characterize many sectors. The findings should also interest practitioners and researchers as the detailed assessment of raw material criticality ensures a sufficient database for future studies.