Composition and Critical Mineral Content of Major Industrial Wastewaters: Implications for Treatment and Resource Recovery Technologies.

Critical minerals (CMs), such as lithium for rechargeable batteries and rare-earth elements for electrical components, are the new foundation of modern economies, technologies, and infrastructure, yet their supply chains are vulnerable to disruption. The widespread presence of CMs in industrial wastewater has motivated the development of wastewater resource recovery or valorization technologies aimed at enhancing supply chain resilience and mitigating environmental impacts. However, wastewater characteristics are highly variable, and data describing them are often limited or incomplete, leading researchers to rely on synthetic substitutes that may not reflect realistic properties. To better guide this research, here we compile and analyze the pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), total organic carbon (TOC), inorganic composition, CM content, and generation rates of wastewater streams from twenty-two individual industrial activities. These activities are associated with six major industries: oil and gas production, metal and coal mining, manufacturing, fossil-fuel power generation, geothermal power generation, and gasification. We conclude our study by (1) identifying industries and waste streams with high CM recovery potential, (2) highlighting common challenges for recovery technologies, and (3) creating representative wastewater compositions for each industrial activity to support the development of realistic and effective recovery technologies.