Mine your brine.
That reject stream isn't waste — it's an ore body you already concentrated, and Desalus works it. Between 5,000 and 50,000 mg/L TDS, Desalus funds, builds, owns and operates the treatment — assaying your brine, extracting the grade as farm-grade fertilizer Desalus sells, and recovering 99%+ of the water clean. You simply buy back clean water at an attractive rate per thousand gallons, with zero brine, zero waste and no tailings liability.
You hauled the grade to surface. Then you pay to pond it.
Brine is the concentrate — the dissolved salts already gathered into a high-grade stream by the work your process did. Conventional treatment treats that ore as overburden: pump it to a pond, line it, walk away. You spend twice over, and the deposit just sits there evaporating.
- The grade is real — the sulfates, chlorides and nutrients in your brine are the same minerals fertilizer is built from, yet they go to tailings.
- Disposal sterilizes value — every liner, haul and injection well burns capital to bury a deposit that should be feeding farms instead.
- Recovery flatlines inland as TDS climbs toward 50,000 mg/L, so the richest, highest-grade brine is exactly what gets left in the pond.
Read your brine like a grade report
Higher TDS is higher grade — the richer the brine, the more there is to extract. Desalus turns that grade into yield instead of tailings.
Prospect the stream as a deposit and the economics invert.
Desalus is a full treatment service that works your brine like an ore body — assaying the grade, extracting the valuable fraction as product and pulling the water out clean, with no tailings to bury.
Grade becomes product
Desalus extracts the dissolved salts as farm-grade fertilizer and sells it — the same minerals you paid to concentrate, now feeding farms rather than ponded. That offtake is how Desalus keeps your water rate low.
Lower water cost, zero capital
No capital outlay, no operating burden, no disposal or tailings liability. 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 cost.
99%+ water back, clean
Nearly every drop returns as usable water, so you win the carrier and the cargo from the same ore in one pass.
No tailings, no permit fight
With nothing concentrated left behind, the zero-liquid-discharge result strips out the regulatory exposure that ponds and injection wells carry.
Local fertilizer, local benefit
Extracted nutrients feed regional agriculture — building food security from a deposit that used to be a cost line.
Engineered to your assay
What's extractable depends on the grade. Desalus models yield directly from your specific full-panel water report.
The higher the grade, the richer the mine
From lightly brackish groundwater to near-saturation process brine, Desalus is designed for 5,000–50,000 mg/L total dissolved solids — the grade band where the deposit is densest and the most value is currently abandoned.
The highlighted band is pay grade — the inland streams that assay rich and pay back fastest.
Bury the brine, or mine it
One ore body in. The difference is whether the grade leaves as tailings or as product.
| What happens to… | Desalus | Evaporation ponds | Conventional RO |
|---|---|---|---|
| The dissolved grade | Extracted as fertilizer | Crusted into tailings | Concentrated, then dumped |
| The water | 99%+ recovered | Evaporated off | 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 & tailings, forever | Power + disposal |
| Regulatory risk | Low — ZLD | High | Rising |
| Your all-in water cost | Lowest & predictable | Highest | High |
From prospect to producing mine in four steps.
It starts with the assay. Send Desalus a full-panel water quality and volume report, and you'll learn exactly what grade your brine carries and what the valuable fraction is worth extracted.
Start with your water reportProspect — share your full-panel report
Send your water chemistry and volumes through the Desalus contact form. The panel is your assay: it reveals the grade in play.
Assay — get a site-specific model
Desalus quantifies water recovery, your clean-water rate per thousand gallons, and the capital and disposal/tailings costs you avoid.
Extract — deploy the zero-waste service
KNeW Process, Zix-Zak ion exchange and No-Briner systems are configured to separate clean water from saleable product.
Produce — buy back clean water, waste-free
You purchase clean water at your agreed rate per thousand gallons. Brine and tailings never form, and the extracted grade becomes 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 your hardest brine into reliable, affordable clean water — at a rate that turns a disposal cost line into your most surprising saving.
What operators ask before they start mining
What can you actually extract from brine?
The dissolved salts — the chlorides, sulfates and plant nutrients concentrated in your stream — are extracted as farm-grade fertilizer. The exact yield depends on the grade, which is why a full-panel assay drives a site-specific recovery model before anything is promised.
Is this seawater desalination?
No. Desalus mines inland brackish water and brine at 5,000–50,000 mg/L TDS — sites with no ocean to dump tailings into. That's exactly why abandoning the grade is so wasteful: there's nowhere to put it, so it should be extracted as product instead.
Does extracting the grade leave any brine behind?
No. Over 99% of the water is recovered clean and the valuable fraction leaves as product, so there's no concentrated reject — true zero-liquid-discharge, with no tailings pond to line or haul.
How does the Desalus model work — what do I actually pay?
Desalus capitalizes, builds, owns, operates and maintains the mine. 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 assays, extracts and sells the resulting fertilizer, we can price your water below conventional treat-and-dispose alternatives while leaving zero waste and no tailings. The fertilizer revenue is Desalus'; your benefit is cheaper water and no disposal or capital liability.
How do I find out what my brine assays at?
Send a full-panel water quality analysis and your volumes through the contact form on desalus.com. Desalus returns a site-specific model of recovery, your clean-water rate per thousand gallons, and the capital and disposal/tailings costs you avoid — before any commitment.
See what grade you're sitting on.
Send Desalus a full-panel water quality and volume report and get a site-specific assay of the recovery, the clean-water rate and the disposal and capital costs you'll shed on the brine you're about to pond.
No obligation. The report drives a site-specific model of recovery, your clean-water rate per thousand gallons, and the costs you avoid.
- What grade your brine actually assays at
- Your attractive clean-water rate per 1,000 gallons
- Avoided brine, pond, disposal/tailings and capital costs
- Zero capital outlay — Desalus funds, builds & operates it all