Open this photo in gallery: Amanda Hall, CEO of Calgary-based Summit Nanotech: 'Our technology gets twice as much lithium out of a barrel of brine coming out of the ground than the traditional method.'SUPPLIED
Lithium mining is critical to enabling a greener, battery powered future, but mining the alkali metal isn’t always so environmentally friendly.
Traditional mining requires digging holes and blowing up rocks, which can be carbon intensive and disruptive to local habitats. Hard rock lithium mining typically creates 15 tonnes of C02 emissions for every tonne of lithium it produces. The other extraction method, evaporation ponds, requires bringing underground brine to the surface and using chemicals and heat to evaporate water over months.
“Our technology gets twice as much lithium out of a barrel of brine coming out of the ground than the traditional method,” explains Amanda Hall, CEO of Calgary-based Summit Nanotech.
After 18 years working in the mining and oil and gas industries, Ms. Hall says she was concerned with how lithium was proposed to be extracted from oil and gas brines in Alberta and wanted to help the emerging electric vehicle industry – which depends on the metal for its battery technology – source more sustainably.
She founded Summit Nanotech in 2018 and began developing technology to extract lithium in South America, home to the world’s second-largest lithium deposits, after Australia. Along with gaining access to cleaner and higher-concentrated brines, the company was also able to eliminate the use of chemicals in its extraction process, owing to its patented “sorbent” technology.
“You run the brine through our column, which is packed full of materials we call ‘sorbent,’” Ms. Hall explains. “The lithium is the only thing that sticks to the sorbent – it’s like a sponge with pore spaces that are just the right size for lithium – everything else goes through, so we don’t have to add any chemicals, and we can reinject the lithium-depleted brine back underground.”
New mining practices and technologies are helping to improve the cost, efficiency and sustainability of mineral extraction around the world, and many of the most exciting innovations are happening in Canada.
The amount of investment in mining tech in Canada is unbelievable, and it’s heavily rooted in this technology transformation that is ongoing in the mining industry.
— Don Duval, CEO, NORCAT
In fact, when the mining industry wants to explore the latest and greatest that innovators have to offer, they take a trip to NORCAT’s Underground Mine Centre, in Sudbury, Ont., the world’s only innovation centre with an operational underground mine, which allows startups and technology makers to develop, test and showcase their solutions in a real-world setting.
“Technology companies – big, small, domestic, international – can use the Underground Mine Centre to develop and test new technologies,” says Don Duval, CEO of NORCAT, a non-profit that offers health and safety training for the mining industry.
Open this photo in gallery: Vivian Rocha, director of process implementation at Summit Nanotech, does sorbent testing.SUPPLIED
Mr. Duval explains that large mining companies aren’t likely to onboard a new technology without first seeing it in action, meaning that innovators often struggle to land that all-important first customer.
“Once they’ve developed their IP and have a good understanding of where their product might fit in the market, they can use the underground mine as a showcase centre to demonstrate to the large-scale mines and de-risk the technology,” he says. “If you want to know what’s next, get on a plane, get in a car, come to Sudbury, tour NORCAT’s Underground Centre, and you will see installations and test projects, and they change over every week.”
Some of the latest innovations, according to Mr. Duval, combine advancements in remote mineral testing and sensing technology, communication infrastructure, electric industrial vehicles, and autonomous machines and control systems. In combination, these advancements are ushering in a future of mining that is more sustainable, safer, cost efficient and autonomous.
For example, the industry is using drones to conduct remote inspections, search and rescue operations and create 3-D models and maps.
“We have vehicles driving around underground – no operator, no seat – coming up with rocks, driving across our property, dumping them onto a pile, and going right back underground,” Mr. Duval says. “The amount of investment in mining tech in Canada is unbelievable, and it’s heavily rooted in this technology transformation that is ongoing in the mining industry.”
Open this photo in gallery: Domestic and international technology companies can use NORCAT’s Underground Mine Centre, in Sudbury, Ont., to develop, test and showcase new technologies.JAMES HODGINS/PENDA PRODUCTIONS
With well-established, globally competitive technology, sustainability and mining sectors, Canada is emerging as a world leader in the growing field of sustainable or “green” mining, says Chamirai Nyabeze, vice-president of business development and commercialization Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI), also located in Sudbury.
“Mining [is found] across Canada; the country is blessed because it has the ability to produce innovations that are needed everywhere else in the world,” he says. “Canada is well positioned to be a global leader in advancing the innovations that allow the mining industry to be more efficient, greener and cleaner.”
Mr. Nyabeze adds that such efforts are especially crucial in the race to produce more sustainable technologies, like electric vehicles, with sustainably sourced raw materials.
“If the primary industry is dirty, and you’re making clean technologies using dirty metal minerals, it’s a zero-sum game,” he says. “We believe that Canadian technology is going to be transformative in how this planet does mining – and maybe on other planets, too.”