Systematic Assessment of Phosphogypsum Resource Utilization in China: Pathways, Hotspots, and Policy Implications for a Circular Economy

The stockpiling of phosphogypsum poses severe environmental risks, and its resource utilization remains a global challenge. In this study, we systematically review the status of phosphogypsum utilization, and identify research hotspots through bibliometric analysis of 656 publications from the Web of Science Core Collection (2015–2025) using VOSviewer and Citespace. Four primary utilization pathways—building materials, chemical industry, agriculture, and filling materials—are compared regarding technical characteristics, economic benefits, and environmental issues. The results show that China’s phosphogypsum utilization rate reached 61.6% in 2024, with a mean annual increase of 10.2% over the past five years. The building materials pathway dominates, accounting for 64.0% of total, and was identified as a hotspot via bibliometric analysis, and this pathway—especially building gypsum and high-value-added products—demonstrates obvious advantages in terms of technical maturity, cost-effectiveness, and carbon mitigation, with lower environmental risks relative to the other pathways. Future development trends are primarily characterized by scale-up consumption of building materials and upgrading high-value-added production. To facilitate these development trends, relative policy recommendations should be effectively implemented, especially for mandatory “green procurement” policies. Our findings are expected to contribute to the sustainable management of industrial solid waste and accelerate the transition toward a circular economy.