Brine

Brine is an in-game liquid resource found in cold environments and certain space points of interest. It naturally appears in low-temperature pockets of the Tide Pool biome and can be produced when Salt Water partially freezes: cooling Salt Water down to -10.5 °C causes it to separate into Ice (77% by mass) and Brine (23% by mass). Brine Ice, if present, will melt back into Brine. Brine is also obtainable on rocket missions from specific Space POIs — Salty Asteroid Fields yield 216–648 kg per cycle, while Interstellar Oceans yield 37.5–125 kg per cycle.

Brine is primarily processed for two outputs: freshwater and salt. A Desalinator converts Brine into Water and Salt at the ratio 5 kg/s Brine → 3.5 kg/s Water + 1.5 kg/s Salt. When Brine is heated to high temperatures it thermally decomposes: at 105.75 °C it vaporizes into Steam (70% mass) and Salt (30% mass). This vaporization process is heat-deleting because the combined specific heat capacity (SHC) of the products is lower than the reactant; the combined SHC of the steam+salt products is 3.1353 SHC. Running warm Brine (above 40 °C) through a Desalinator also produces a net heat-deleting effect.

Practical notes and interactions:

• Harvesting: check Tide Pool biomes for low-temperature pockets and Brine Ice; cooling Salt Water can be intentionally used to produce a Brine fraction when managing ice formation. Brine Ice will reliably melt back into Brine when warmed.
• Desalination: use Desalinators to obtain potable Water and Salt. The fixed conversion 5 : 3.5 : 1.5 (Brine:Water:Salt by kg/s) lets you size plumbing and storage precisely.
• Heat management: vaporizing Brine at ~105.75 °C yields Steam and Salt and deletes heat; this makes Brine a candidate for setups designed to remove heat from a system. Likewise, feeding warm (>40 °C) Brine into Desalinators also deletes heat.
• Rocket harvesting: plan mission logistics if you need large quantities — Salty Asteroid Fields are the richest source per cycle, with Interstellar Oceans providing smaller but renewable yields.
• Resource looping: because Brine can be generated from Salt Water phase changes and then converted back to Water via Desalinator, it can be integrated into closed-loop plumbing and thermal systems for both resource recovery and heat control.