trong>Narrator: This is Science Today. A nanotube membrane on a silicon chip that's the size of a quarter may offer a cheaper way to remove salt from water, a process that's called desalination. A team of physicists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory created the membrane using nanotubes, which are molecules made of carbon atoms that are 50 thousand times thinner than a human hair. Olgita Bakajin led the team.

Bakajin: What we found is that both gas and water go through carbon nanotubes faster than classical physicists predict. This scientific discovery allows us to think about making very permeable filters with very small pore sizes.

Narrator: The big application is the development of desalination of water.

Bakajin: What we would like to do is develop it for both industrial and humanitarian purposes. So that hopefully coming up with a cheaper way to clean up the water, that could have an impact in a lot of places in the world and we're hoping to also work with some foundations to bring that technology to people who need it.

Narrator: For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.