Your brine is raw material — not waste.
Every cubic meter of brine you pond or haul is a concentrated stockpile of dissolved solids you already paid to gather. Between 5,000 and 50,000 mg/L TDS, Desalus funds, builds, owns and operates the recovery — pulling those salts out as farm-grade fertilizer and returning 99%+ of the water clean, which you simply buy back at an attractive rate per thousand gallons. No brine, no waste, no disposal liability left behind.
You spent energy concentrating those solids. Then you pay to bury them.
Brine isn't dirty water — it's water that has done the work of gathering valuable minerals into one place. Conventional treatment treats that concentrate as a problem to dispose of, paying twice: once to make it, again to get rid of it.
- The salts have real value — sulfates, chlorides and nutrients in your brine are the raw inputs of fertilizer, yet today they're trucked off as waste instead of recovered.
- Disposal is pure cost — every liner, haul and injection well spends money to bury a material that should be recovered, while you keep paying to get rid of it.
- Recovery flatlines inland as TDS climbs, so the richest, most concentrated material is exactly what gets ponded.
A brine stream, read as a materials inventory
The more concentrated the brine, the more material there is to recover — Desalus turns that concentration into an asset instead of a cost.
Treat brine as feedstock and the whole economic equation flips.
Desalus is a full treatment service that reads your brine as a materials stream — pulling the salts out as product and the water out clean, with nothing left to bury.
Solids become product
Dissolved salts are recovered as farm-grade fertilizer — the same minerals you paid to remove, which Desalus refines and sells instead of letting anyone dump them.
Lower water cost, zero capital
No capital outlay and no operating burden — Desalus funds, builds and runs it all. You pay only for clean water delivered, at an attractive rate per thousand gallons that beats your current all-in treat-and-dispose cost.
99%+ water back, clean
Nearly every drop returns as usable water, so you recover the carrier and the cargo from the same stream.
No brine, no permit problem
With nothing concentrated left over, the zero-liquid-discharge result removes the regulatory exposure that ponds and injection carry.
Local fertilizer, local benefit
Recovered nutrients feed regional agriculture — building food security from a stream that used to be a cost.
Engineered to your panel
What's recoverable depends on what's dissolved. Desalus models product yield from your specific full-panel water report.
The richer the brine, the more material to recover
From lightly brackish groundwater to near-saturation process brine, Desalus is designed for 5,000–50,000 mg/L total dissolved solids — the band where the most material is concentrated and the most value is currently thrown away.
Higher TDS means a denser materials inventory — exactly the streams that pay back fastest.
Discard the brine, or recover the materials
One stream in. The difference is whether the solids leave as waste or as product.
| What happens to… | Desalus | Evaporation ponds | Conventional RO |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dissolved solids | Recovered as fertilizer | Crusted & landfilled | Concentrated, then dumped |
| The water | 99%+ recovered | Evaporated away | Partially recovered |
| Brine / reject | None | Permanent pond | Yes — a liability |
| Capital you outlay | None — Desalus owns & operates | You fund & build | You fund & build |
| What you pay for | Clean water, per 1,000 gal | Disposal, forever | Power + disposal |
| Regulatory risk | Low — ZLD | High | Rising |
| Your all-in water cost | Lowest & predictable | Highest | High |
From brine stream to recovered material in four steps.
It starts with what's dissolved. Send Desalus a full-panel water quality and volume report, and you'll learn exactly which materials your brine carries and what they're worth recovered.
Start with your water reportShare your full-panel report
Send your water chemistry and volumes through the Desalus contact form. The panel reveals which materials are in play.
Get a materials & recovery model
Desalus quantifies water recovery, your clean-water rate per thousand gallons, and the capital and disposal costs you avoid by letting Desalus recover the materials.
Deploy the zero-waste service
KNeW Process, Zix-Zak ion exchange and No-Briner systems are configured to separate water from saleable material.
Buy back clean water, waste-free
You purchase clean water at your agreed rate per thousand gallons. Brine never forms, and the recovered salts become fertilizer Desalus markets — which is how your water price stays low.
Raise profit. Eliminate waste. Flourish community.
The award-winning systems behind the Desalus service turn the hardest brine into reliable, affordable clean water — with every dissolved material recovered and nothing left to waste.
What materials-minded operators ask first
What "materials" can actually be recovered from brine?
The dissolved salts — chlorides, sulfates and plant nutrients concentrated in your stream — are recovered as farm-grade fertilizer feedstock. The exact yield depends on your water chemistry, which is why a full-panel report drives a site-specific recovery model.
Is this seawater desalination?
No. Desalus is built for inland brackish water and brine at 5,000–50,000 mg/L TDS — sites with no ocean to discharge to. That's exactly why discarding the solids is so wasteful: there's nowhere to put them, so they should be recovered as product.
Does recovering the solids leave any brine behind?
No. Over 99% of the water is recovered clean and the solids leave as product, so there is no concentrated reject stream — true zero-liquid-discharge with nothing to pond or haul.
How does the Desalus model work — what do I actually pay?
Desalus capitalizes, builds, owns, operates and maintains the facility. You don't buy equipment or run anything — you simply purchase the clean water Desalus produces, at an attractive rate per thousand gallons. Because Desalus recovers and sells the resulting fertilizer, we can price your water below conventional treat-and-dispose alternatives while leaving zero waste. The fertilizer revenue is Desalus'; your benefit is cheaper water and no disposal liability.
How do I find out what my brine is worth as a Desalus site?
Send a full-panel water quality analysis and your volumes through the contact form on desalus.com. Desalus returns a site-specific model of water recovery, your clean-water rate per thousand gallons, and the capital and disposal costs you avoid — before any commitment.
See what's recoverable in the brine you're discarding.
Send Desalus a full-panel water quality and volume report and get a site-specific model of the clean water you can buy back, your rate per thousand gallons, and the capital and disposal costs you shed.
No obligation. The report drives a site-specific model of recovery, your clean-water rate per thousand gallons, and the capital and disposal costs you avoid.
- Which dissolved materials your brine actually carries
- Your attractive clean-water rate per thousand gallons
- Avoided brine, pond, disposal and capital costs
- Zero capital outlay — Desalus funds, builds & operates it all