21. Summit Nanotech
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Growth Rate: 158%

Once upon a mountaintop, geophysicist Amanda Hall saw a Tibetan monk pull an iPhone out of his robe. Smartphones are everywhere, she thought. But as a geophysicist, she immediately started worrying about potential shortages of lithium, the key ingredient in high-tech batteries, whose very extraction often risks air, water and soil pollution.

To discover easier, greener methods of mining lithium, Hall founded Calgary-based Summit Nanotech in 2018. Instead of traditional hard-rock mining or water-intensive brine mining, Summit’s solution uses nanotechnology to filter lithium from waste saltwater brine used in oil wells. The multiple-award-winning technology could double lithium yields versus conventional processes while reducing land use, halving greenhouse gas emissions, and almost eliminating chemical waste.

Currently pre-revenue, Summit will sell extraction services to oil and gas firms and other owners of mineral rights. Step one to commercialization: a fresh US$14 million in funding and a six-client pilot project in Chile.

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