LIVERMORE, CA — A California company has received an exclusive license from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to bring to market a carbon nanotube technology capable of desalinating water and of being used in other liquid and gas filtration applications, the laboratory announced in a November 12 press release.

The company, Porifera, Inc., based in Hayward, CA, was started in 2008 with the sole goal of commercializing carbon nanotube technology, the release said. Olgica Bakajin, Porifera’s chief technology officer and a former LLNL chief scientist, called the technology “very exciting” and a potentially “game-changing technology; she said it is now at the right stage of development for the marketplace.

Carbon nanotubes are specific molecular arrangements of carbon atoms that allow liquids and gases to flow through them quickly while blocking passage of larger molecules. The technology was discovered by LLNL scientists and reported in 2006.

Portifera and other partners will use a $3.3 million grant from the federal government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop a small, portable, self-cleaning desalination system using the nanotubes.

Another potentially valuable use for the technology, according to the release, is carbon dioxide sequestration, such as separating carbon dioxide from nitrogen in gas emissions of power plants.

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