High-recovery Inland Brine Management for California Water Resilience (Comparative Field Performance of Switchable-solvent Softening and Electro-membrane Concentration Across Five Pilot Demonstrations)
Authors:
John Webley 1, Michael Greene 2, Clark Easter 3
Trevi Systems, Inc., Rohnert Park, CA, USA
1,2
Global Water Innovations, Cambria, CA, USA
3
doi.org/10.52132/Ajrsp.e.2026.86.1
This study evaluates high-recovery, non-thermal brine management strategies for inland desalination and water reuse applications in California, where water scarcity and regulatory pressures are increasing. The objective was to assess the technical feasibility and cross-site robustness of two alternative treatment pathways: (i) switchable-solvent softening coupled with membrane concentration, and (ii) electrodialysis metathesis (EDM) integrated with osmotically assisted reverse osmosis (OaRO). A mobile pilot system was deployed across five field sites treating diverse feedwaters, including brackish groundwater, reverse osmosis (RO) concentrate, municipal recycled-water brine, winery wastewater, and agricultural greenhouse brine. Site-specific pretreatment and polishing steps were incorporated as required to address variations in chemistry, including silica, organics, and scaling salts. Results show that the EDM–OaRO pathway provided the most consistent and scalable performance, achieving overall water recoveries of 84.2–98.4% across all sites and demonstrating effective control of scaling through ion-selective separation. In contrast, the switchable-solvent pathway successfully removed scale-forming salts in selected cases but exhibited strong dependence on feed chemistry and was constrained by solvent regeneration challenges, particularly flash-chamber performance and residual solvent removal. The findings demonstrate that membrane-based, non-thermal brine management can significantly reduce brine volume while increasing recoverable water, offering a viable pathway toward near-zero liquid discharge (ZLD) for inland applications. Among the evaluated approaches, EDM integrated with OaRO is identified as the most promising near-term solution for deployment across variable water chemistries, while switchable-solvent treatment remains a valuable selective pretreatment technology requiring further optimization
Keywords:
Inland desalination; brine management; SGMA; California agriculture; electrodialysis metathesis; OaRO; switchable solvent; zero liquid discharge; water reuse
Academic Journal of Research and Scientific Publishing
