December 01, 2025

The Mine of the Future: How SiTration's Technology is Transforming Metal Recovery and Sustainability

36 minutes

This time we talk to Brandon Smith, Co-Founder and CEO of SiTration, a company redefining metal recovery with a chemical-free separation process.

Brandon recently presented at the ACG Mine Closure conference, highlighting SiTration’s breakthrough results in recovery yields and purity — achieved without traditional chemical reagents.

We discuss how the technology works, what challenges come with scaling innovation in mining, and what the future of resource recovery could look like as SiTration grows.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

The technology is capable of recovering multiple metals, including copper, cobalt, nickel, and precious metals like gold and platinum, making it applicable across various mining and recycling processes.

The company has successfully conducted tests with real-world samples, confirming that their recovery yields of over 90% and purity levels of 99% can be achieved outside of controlled laboratory conditions.

While regulatory challenges are minimal due to the chemical-free nature of the process, technical and cultural barriers remain significant.

The integration of technology could lead to more sustainable mining practices, enabling the recovery of critical minerals from waste streams and reducing the need for new mining projects

BEST MOMENTS

"Our main thesis in my PhD and postdoc work was if you could transition a lot of these standard kind of chemical and heat-based separations, you could reduce a lot of that energy consumption and have a major impact."

"We can actually recover the copper in a very similar way just by mechanically removing it in a very kind of streamlined process from the electrodes."

"The short answer is yes, absolutely. It can offset... we're probably never going to get away entirely from new mining, but we can drastically supplement the supply chain with critical minerals recovered from waste."

"We want that to loop back to how we're actually doing the mining and making it much more versatile and nimble."

GUEST RESOURCES

● www.sitration.com

● Brendan's email: [email protected]

● https://www.linkedin.com/company/sitration-inc

● https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendansmith2/

VALUABLE RESOURCES

Mail: ⁠[email protected]⁠

LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-tyson-3a26a68/⁠

X: ⁠https://twitter.com/MiningRobTyson⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/DigDeepTheMiningPodcast⁠

Web: ⁠http://www.mining-international.org⁠

CONTACT METHOD

⁠[email protected]⁠

⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-tyson-3a26a68/⁠

Podcast Description

Rob Tyson is an established recruiter in the mining and quarrying sector and decided to produce the “Dig Deep” The Mining Podcast to provide valuable and informative content around the mining industry. He has a passion and desire to promote the industry and the podcast aims to offer the mining community an insight into people’s experiences and careers covering any mining discipline, giving the listeners helpful advice and guidance on industry topics.

This Podcast has been brought to you by Disruptive Media. https://disruptivemedia.co.uk/

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By Rob Tyson

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