A New Separation Pathway Unlocking Water, Efficiency, and Value for Modern Mining
Mining is changing. Operations are processing finer ores, operating larger water circuits, and facing rising pressure to reduce tailings risk and environmental impact. Across gold, copper, and iron ore, the industry still relies on a familiar toolkit: conventional slurry deposition, thickened tailings, paste, and—where water scarcity demands it—filtered dry-stack. These technologies work, but their trade-offs are becoming increasingly visible.
Conventional TSFs lock up enormous water volumes and create long-term liability. Thickeners and paste plants improve density, but gains plateau quickly. Filtered dry-stack delivers the highest recovery, yet at the cost of high CAPEX, heavy energy use, and operational complexity.
Incremental tuning cannot bridge the future. The industry needs a step-change—not another percentage point on the same flowsheet.
HELSS™ introduces a new liquid–solid separation step designed to reinforce the entire system. Rather than competing within the existing spectrum, HELSS™ opens an alternative pathway—one engineered to unlock high water recovery, low energy demand, and a significantly smaller downstream footprint without relying on the filtration infrastructure that limits dry-stack adoption.
HELSS™ strengthens upstream and downstream performance, enabling:
- More water returned to the plant, even with ultra-fine or variable feeds
- Lower energy and maintenance burden than filtration-based systems
- More stable dewatering under fluctuating conditions
- A smaller, safer operational footprint and reduced tailings pressure
- Stronger performance from existing thickeners and filtration assets
- Better alignment with evolving ESG, permitting, and regulatory expectations
- Enovist builds separation technology for the orebodies of today—and the environmental expectations of tomorrow.
Mining companies know where current technologies top out. We are building what comes next.
TECHNOLOGY OVERVIEW – “HELSS™ at a glance”
A new path to sustainable separation
Enovist’s HELSS™ platform enables clean water recovery and tailings dewatering with unmatched efficiency and simplicity. Designed for mining, industrial, and municipal applications, it closes the gap between conventional thickening and filtration — achieving comparable clarity at a fraction of the cost, footprint, and energy use.
Unlike mechanical or chemical processes that depend on high energy or reagents, HELSS™ operates cleanly and continuously, allowing operators to:
- Recover more water for reuse or discharge compliance.
- Cut operating costs by up to 60 – 80 % compared to filtration.
- Reduce environmental impact and chemical consumption to near zero.
- Retrofit easily within existing treatment infrastructure.
- Scale seamlessly from lab validation to industrial deployment.
Water recovered. Energy saved. Impact multiplied.
Real-World Impact
Turning sustainability into performance
Across mining and industrial operations, HELSS™ enables a shift from reactive water management to proactive resource recovery.
By eliminating the dependence on heat, filters, and reagents, operators gain resilience — economically and environmentally.
Results in context:
Reduces energy intensity of tailings treatment by up to 80 %.
Cuts lifecycle cost per m³ by 50–70 %.
Enables regulatory compliance with minimal waste generation.
Simplifies plant design — smaller footprint, faster commissioning.
Supports ESG targets and net-zero commitments through water circularity.
Current Stage
Proven Principle, Advancing Toward Integrated Continuous Validation
HELSS™ has successfully demonstrated its core separation principle through a combination of computational modeling and bench-scale batch testing, confirming that efficient liquid–solid separation can be achieved without heat or chemicals and with lower energy consumption than existing commercial technologies.
Building on that proof, Enovist is now advancing to continuous-mode validation — the next step toward stable, scalable operation for industrial water and tailings applications.
This development path is supported by a collaborative program with an academic institution in Calgary, integrating fluid-mechanics modeling, data acquisition, and iterative prototyping to refine both digital and physical performance.
Current Validation Highlights:
Proof of Principle: Demonstrated — batch testing confirmed separation efficiency and repeatability.
Computational Modeling: Validated flow behavior and predicted performance under industrial parameters.
Continuous Validation: In progress — optimizing throughput stability and efficiency at bench scale.
Patent Protection: CA 3127837 / WO2020160648A1 (core design and method).
Next Milestone: Pilot-scale demonstration with mining and industrial partners (target TRL 6–7).
Collaborate and Partner with Enovist
Collaborate to advance sustainable water recovery
Enovist partners with mining operators, industrial processors, academic and research organizations committed to improving water efficiency and environmental performance. Our goal is simple — to turn sustainable separation into measurable operational value.
Through strategic collaborations, we help organizations:
Reduce treatment costs while increasing water reuse.
Achieve ESG and net-zero goals through cleaner, lower-energy processes.
Accelerate innovation by integrating validated clean-tech solutions into real-world systems.
We welcome partnerships focused on pilot testing, data validation, and commercial scaling of HELSS™ technology.