Cetos Water won the 2025/2026 Future of Mining Challenge by Wheaton Precious Metals for its innovative membrane-less and non-evaporative water recovery solution.SUPPLIED
As awareness of pressures on water systems continues to grow, water is increasingly recognized as a critical operational resource. This has led to greater attention on water stewardship strategies, particularly for water‑intensive industries such as mining and mineral processing.
This heightened recognition of the need for responsible water management inspired the 2025/2026 Future of Mining Challenge by Wheaton Precious Metals, which focused on identifying innovative technologies that support sustainable water management in mining.
“While water might have historically been viewed as an inexpensive natural resource, it really is production-critical infrastructure for mining operations,” says Shannon Knee, founder and CEO of Cetos Water, the company that won the challenge for its unique technology that turns wastewater from mining activities into clean, reusable water.
Operating a mine requires “making sure you’re a good steward of water, reuse as much of your process water as possible and capture water that’s otherwise lost to evaporation to minimize diverting freshwater resources from communities,” says Ms. Knee, who emphasizes that Cetos Water can help achieve all of that – and more.
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“Cetos Water stood out for both the strength of its technology and the stage of its development,” says Haytham Hodaly, president and CEO of Wheaton Precious Metals. “We recognized the US$1-million award could be catalytic in helping accelerate the team’s progress at this critical stage, and the solution has the potential to deliver a meaningful, positive impact at mining operations if successfully deployed.”
Two key differentiators set the solution apart from conventional technologies: “Our process is both membrane-less and non-evaporative,” says Eliza Dach, lead scientist at Cetos Water. “We don’t just treat water in a novel way, but we’re changing the perspective of what is treatable in the first place.”
Cetos Water, a spinout from the Yip Lab in the Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering at Columbia University, pioneered a solvent extraction process for treating complex and hyper saline brines, she explains. “The solvents have a different affinity for water at different temperatures, so we’re using this temperature differential to selectively absorb and release water.”
At cooler temperatures, the solvent acts like a liquid sponge that absorbs freshwater, thereby leaving salts and other contaminants behind. “Then, only a moderate change in temperature is needed for releasing the freshwater,” says Dr. Dach. “It’s like wringing out the sponge, which then gets regenerated for continuous processing within the system.”
This mechanism of freshwater extraction – rather than targeting specific contaminants or a specific water chemistry – “is one of the core properties that makes our technology so versatile,” she adds.
“What especially resonates with the mining community is the really elegant way our technology addresses diverse challenges of water treatment,” says Ms. Knee, in reference to a technology showcase hosted by Wheaton in Toronto, which brought together about 150 industry stakeholders, including mine operators and investors. “The feedback we received from the mining community has been very energizing and helpful for driving the technology forward.”
Substantial benefits associated with Cetos Water technology include, first and foremost, “minimizing volumes of wastewater that need to be transported or disposed of – and generation of freshwater that can be reused, sold or distributed back into the environment,” she says.
Secondly, companies can increase their ability to drive additional revenue through better utilization of the materials found in brines, Ms. Knee explains. “Lithium and other critical minerals are often present in waste streams or mine tailings, but they usually exist at dilute levels that can make it challenging to commercially extract and sell them.”
In evaporative processing, for example, mineral-rich brine streams are pumped into shallow ponds to concentrate the valuable minerals to a level required for refining. For lithium processing, typically 40 to 60 per cent is recovered since some of the valuable mineral is lost to evaporation as well as co-precipitation with lime.
“With our technology, we can markedly increase lithium yields and generate a sizable amount of freshwater that would otherwise be lost to evaporation,” says Ms. Knee, who sees significant commercial potential in the technology’s ability to produce mineral concentrations suitable for downstream processing.
Testing the recovery potential for water and minerals from a range of sources, Cetos Water has “seen a consistently strong and robust performance,” says Dr. Dach, who cites examples such as industrial waste brines, landfill leachates, irrigation runoff and evaporative mining feed streams, including from lithium evaporation, acid rock drainage and oil sands tailings.
“We tested our process on a number of real-world brines rather than just simulating things in the lab for easy data,” she says, adding that the highly complex and heterogenous nature of water composition makes this an important distinction. “Across these different verticals, we look at core performance and durability to ensure we’re not just capturing one snapshot in time but performance over the lifespan of an asset.”
The company is now commissioning a demonstration unit capable of continuous processing of approximately 200 litres of brine per day, which Dr. Dach regards as an “exciting validation of our technology. We have a queue of different customers lined up for running a whole host of brines. And since our technology is focused on the water-extraction mechanism, we don’t need material re-engineering to handle different brine stocks.”
The wide application of Cetos Water technology adds to its appeal but can make selecting specific focus areas challenging. That’s where the Future of Mining Challenge has provided valuable direction, says Ms. Knee. “There are a couple of industries we are very excited about and that are, excuse the pun, floating to the top.
“We’ve seen how [mining] industry leaders value innovation and sustainability,” she notes. “They recognize water as critical input that needs to be managed properly. Otherwise, they can face pushback from governments and communities, which can lead to operational shutdowns or even stranded assets.”
This makes the Cetos Water solution all the more relevant and timely, and Ms. Knee anticipates substantial ripple effects from the innovation.
“We believe our technology can not only capture water that is otherwise lost but also tackle things that were previously not considered a part of the water equation. Water technology hasn’t seen a step function improvement over the last 50 years. In fact, the last big paradigm shift was the advent of membranes,” she says.
In short, the world is ready for something new.
Advertising feature produced by Randall Anthony Communications with the Prospectors & Developers Association of Canada. The Globe’s editorial department was not involved.